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Raise the curtain on more storage capacity
The Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt theatre company has a collection of around 40,000 costumes. The Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt theatre has now expanded its collection of props with a special construction based on pallet racks for one section, the storage of repertoire costumes. Clothes rails are mounted on the shelf supports so that the costumes can be stored hanging on coat hangers. By using the shelves, the costume department can now store costumes more effectively in the expanded storage area.
More space needed for costumes
The costume department of the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt produces an average of 2,000 costumes per season. For reasons of space, costumes from productions that have already been shown or from plays that will not be performed again until a later season are stored in the costume warehouse in Frankfurt's Osthafen area. The costumes were temporarily stored on mobile clothes rails in a newly acquired storage area on the fifth floor of a former mill. However, this meant that the clothes could only be stored on one level and the space was not used effectively.
Storage on two levels
In order to obtain more storage capacity, the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt therefore decided to replace the coat racks used to date with shelving units that would allow storage on two levels, given the height of the room. A particular challenge was accessing the fifth floor: It is only possible via a lift, and a narrow staircase. Therefore, no component of the racks was allowed to be longer than four metres.
Space used effectively
OHRA adapted its standard pallet racks to the individual wishes and circumstances of the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt: The rails on which the coat racks are mounted are 3.9 metres long. Each shelf can be individually adjusted in height in 100-millimetre increments, independently of the adjacent shelf on the other side of the shelf. With a load capacity of 1,000 kilograms, the shelves can bear costumes in the total weight of 50 kilograms per meter safely. The uprights or frames of the shelving units are 2.88 metres high, thus enabling the height of the room to be used to full effect. OHRA also customised the depth of the shelves to 700 millimetres to meet the requirements of the stock. Chipboard can be placed on the supports to protect the costumes underneath from dust. All components of the shelves can be dismantled again at any time without being damaged, for example when moving to a new location.
The new shelving system has increased storage capacity by 50 per cent in the same amount of storage space. Furthermore, the mobile coat racks that were previously used to store the costumes are now available again for their original purpose – transporting the costumes.
About the Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt:
The Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt is the largest municipal theatre in Germany. In 2004, it was reorganised as a limited liability company (GmbH) under public law (the City of Frankfurt am Main is the sole shareholder) and consists of two artistic divisions: opera and theatre. The Theatre in Frankfurt has a long and rich history: the first permanent theatre, the Comoedienhaus, was built in 1782 on the north side of what was then the Theaterplatz (now Rathenauplatz). When this became too small for the needs of an ever-growing city, a new opera house was built on Opernplatz (now the Alte Oper) in 1880 and a new playhouse was built at Gallustor (since renamed Theaterplatz, now Willy-Brandt-Platz) in 1902. In 1963, the so-called ‘theatre double’, which once again housed both sections together, opened its doors.
