Urban planning regulation and the placement of theatrical institutions in the largest urban agglomerations.

The theatrical infrastructure plays a key role in the sustainable development of modern megacities, serving not only as a cultural center but also as an important driver of urban transformation and sociocultural development of urban areas. The spatial organization of theaters, including their location and architectural solutions, is directly dependent on current regulatory mechanisms and governing tools. The focus of the research is made on the analysis of how, today, regulatory and urban planning documents define the formation of a network of theatrical institutions, taking into account the planning features of megacities. The object of study is the regulatory framework for urban planning, as well as strategic documents in the field of theater development, which determine the principles of location for theatrical institutions in the largest Russian agglomerations at all levels of governance: federal, regional, and municipal. The methodology of the study combines the analysis of the actual placement of theaters with the study of regulatory regulation. This approach allows for the identification of both spatial patterns and systemic problems in the organization of cultural infrastructure. The relevance is due to the reorientation from managerial to spatial-environmental principles of organizing cultural infrastructure, which is particularly significant for dynamically developing agglomerations. The study showed that the current placement regulations for theaters, based on outdated quantitative indicators (the number of seats, the number of theaters, and formal accessibility), ignore modern challenges—suburbanization, new theatrical formats, and real zones of cultural attraction—thus reducing their role in the development of the urban environment. Regulatory documents do not take into account the comprehensive architectural and urban planning criteria necessary for the harmonious integration of theaters into the urban environment. A particular issue is the duality of theater regulation (as a cultural institution and an object of urban planning) creates a disbalance between quantitative standards and the quality of cultural space.

theater, urban agglomeration, urbanization, urban planning regulation, urban planning standards, urban planning, evolution of rationing, urban structure, urban core, commuting zone