The Comédie de Clermont, Scène Nationale theatre, designed by Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, is built on the foundations of a former train station, with certain preserved elements protected as Historic Monuments.
The La Comédie, Scène Nationale theatre is located in the former bus station built between 1957 and 1961 by Clermont-based architect Valentin Vigneron (1908-1973), student of Auguste Perret. We can easily see the characteristic architectural features: a bright, reinforced-concrete building, glass block façade with concrete “V” patterns, a dome and a majestic entrance. This bus station was decommissioned in 2005 and its platforms with covered walkways were destroyed. In 2006 the main hall, its dome and façade on the Boulevard François-Mitterrand were listed on the historic monuments registry. In 2014 the town of Clermont-Ferrand decided to build the dedicated location for the Comédie de Clermont, Scène Nationale theatre on the site. In 2016 the project of Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura (1952-), 2011 winner of the Pritzker prize, was selected. The work began in 2017 and ended in 2020.
With strict specifications and respect for the existing building, Souto de Moursa proposed the most humble possible project, with his own creation firmly in the background. The Vigneron façade thus preserved serve as the entrance and opens onto a public lobby, whose original décor by Jean Mosnier (1923-) is restored. Encouraging communication between spaces, through passageways, large volumes and raw concrete, it features two performance halls off a radiating axis with the same layout and 900 and 350 seats respectively, the larger one emerging unpretentiously into the urban landscape. With total surface area of 9,300 sq. m, the building also has a rehearsal studio, three mediation rooms and a café-restaurant.