Berthier's workshops, named after the boulevard of Marshal Berthier, where they are located, were built by Charles Garnier in the last years of the 19th century. The Paris Opera was the first to accommodate the decoration workshops and the set warehouse, then the same institutions of the Opera-Comique and Odeon theaters moved there. The complex was erected close to the city fortifications - the so-called walls of Thiers, named after the prime minister who proposed to create them. They surrounded Paris until the interwar years, when they were almost completely demolished as they lost their defensive significance and hindered the development of the city. One of the surviving sites is just behind Berthier's workshops, along Rue Bastion.
On the outside of the disappeared wall is now the Boulevard Pereferic, a ring road, but despite its outskirts, the Clichy-Batignolles area is now undergoing a major reconstruction. Offices, housing, schools and kindergartens are built here, and it is here that
the main judicial complex of Paris designed by Renzo Piano.
Berthier's workshops also change in accordance with the era: at the moment, only the Paris Opera creates and stores the scenery there, and the Odeon Theater has turned its building into a second stage, and the Opera-Comique has moved, occupying another nearby building with its technical base.
In 2016, it was decided to transform the Berthier workshops, a state-protected monument, into the "City of Theater", Cité du théâtre. It will be occupied by the "Odeon", "Comedie Francaise" and the Higher National Conservatory of Dramatic Art. Architects Nieto Sobejano won the competition for the reconstruction project: according to their plan, the old and new buildings will be united by a hanging garden, which continues the line of Martin Luther King Park located across Berthier Boulevard.
The total area of the Theater City will be about 22,000 m2, which will include as many as seven modular auditoriums. The Comedie Française will receive two (250 and 600 spectators), the Odeon will also receive two (250 and 500), and the Conservatory - three (two for 100 seats and one for 200). Also planned are studios, classrooms and administrative offices, as well as areas common to all three institutions.
The largest, central building of the Garnier complex will become the conservatory lobby, restaurants and other public functions will be opened there.
The new building, 200 meters long, will cover the historical buildings from the north, following the line of the preserved section of the walls of Thiers, which will be restored, like Berthier's workshops.
