Theater Aachen

The Theater Aachen is a cultural institution for drama and music theatre of the city of Aachen, opened in 1825. It stands in the succession of the no-longer-representative former Old Comedy House on the Katschhof, the first public theatre in Aachen, built in 1751 by Johann Joseph Couven. In 1920 the previously independent Aachen Symphony Orchestra was attached to the theatre. The present two-division house has its seat in a neoclassical building complex on the Aachen Kapuzinergraben, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Johann Peter Cremer. Performances take place either on the "Große Bühne" with 730 seats or in the "kleine Kammer" with 168 seats. For chamber-music performances the mirror foyer is available, whereas the large symphony concerts are mostly performed in the Eurogress Aachen. The theatre also has, as an external venue, the so-called Mörgens with its 99 seats. In 1802 the French government in occupied Aachen decided that the previous comedy house on the Katschhof, which no longer met the structural and representative requirements, should be extensively rebuilt and modernised, or that a new building should be designed as an alternative. The design for the conversion was undertaken by the architect Jacques Cellerier (1742–1814), but its execution could not initially be realised due to a severe lack of money.