ARTS VENUES

The Barbican Centre

The Barbican Centre's facilities include two principal hall/theatres, a small theatre, a gallery that receives and mounts exhibitions, three cinemas, and housing. The Brutalist-style complex is multi-levelled and some people find it difficult to navigate.

The City of London's Barbican district was devastated by aerial bombardment during the Second World War. In the early 1950s only a few dozen people were living in the ward. In the 1960s the Corporation of the City of London addressed the issue of how the area might be redeveloped. Initially, the local authority decided to build a single small recital hall. However, the project experienced severe mission creep . Its construction started in 1971. The Centre was officially opened in 1982, five years after the original completion date. The original estimate for the cost of building the Barbican Centre was 7m. It ended costing 156. During its construction the City of London s Common Council almost cancelled it three times.

Location: Silk Street, EC2Y 8DS (blue, turquoise)

Website: www.barbican.org.uk

The Institute of Contemporary Arts

The Institute of Contemporary Arts (I.C.A.) is an independent body that caters to virtually all of the arts and will almost certainly prove to be open to receiving any ones that have yet to be devised.

In the 1930s the idea of London having a museum of modern art was mooted by the American collector Peggy Guggenheim and the British art critic Herbert Read. After 1945 the concept was resuscitated. In 1946 the Institute opened in premises on Dover Street. In 1968 it moved to The Mall.

During the 1920s T.S. Eliot wrote several anti-Semitic poems. The Jewish poet Emanuel Litvinoff (1915-2011) objected to these. He wrote the poem To T.S. Eliot (1952) as a reply. He decided to give it its first public airing by reading at the I.C.A.. Sir Herbert Read made the assumption that it must be a panegyric and, without informing Litvinoff, invited Eliot to the occasion. The work was about to be read when the great man arrived, Litvinoff went ahead and read it. The piece was met with silence. There then followed uproar as the members of the audience expressed their outrage at so public an insult to a person of such immense literary standing. However, Eliot himself was heard to quietly comment, It's a good poem. And so it was. Of Litvinoff's output it was the one that went on be included in anthologies most frequently.

In 1959 The I.C.A. mounted the Place exhibition of art. This was described by one reviewer as being an exhibition-cum-practical experiment, a later term would be site-specific installation. The event was organised by the abstract painter Robyn Denny.

In 1962 The I.C.A. staged a Festival of Misfits. Those who appeared at it included the Fluxus artist Robin Page (1932-2015). His performance consisted of kicking an electric guitar off-stage, kicking it through the building out on to Dover Street, and then along the street.

In 2011 The I.C.A. focussed itself more on the visual arts.

Location: 12 Carlton House Terrace, SW1Y 5AH (red, white)

Website: www.ica.art

The Independent Group

In 1952 The I.C.A. hosted the initial meeting of the Independent Group. The assemblage included: the art critic Lawrence Alloway, the painter Richard Hamilton, the photographer Nigel Henderson, the artist and social theoretician John McHale, the sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi, and the architects Alison and Peter Smithson, the painter and sculptor William Turnbull, and Edward Wright.

See Also: DEVELOPMENTS Smithson Plaza

Website: wwwindependentgroup.org.uk (A Kingston University website)

Sir Herbert Read

Sir Herbert Read metamorphosed from being a civil servant who had an informed interest in ceramics into being an impassioned herald of Modernism. That he had not been educated as a painter furnished him with intellectual freedom. Aesthetically, he was able to move further than the painter-critic Roger Fry had been able to - Read was not bound by the artistic training that held Fry back from being able to appreciate the new art.

Politically, Read was an Anarchist who sent his children to Roman Catholic public schools and a libertarian who in 1952 accepted a knighthood. This behaviour stemmed from his being prepared to defer to the opinions of his second wife Margaret Read, whose views he respected. Lady Read's desire to become Lady Read stemmed from her wish to receive decent service when she went to the local garage.

See Also: ANARCHISM The Freedom Press

Francis Bacon

In the late 1920s Francis Bacon was making furniture and rugs that were clearly influenced by Modernists such as the Swiss architect Le Corbusier. The Irishman moved on to painting with oils. His output was indebted to Cubism and Surrealism. In 1930 he held an exhibition in a studio of his rugs and paintings. This brought him to the notice of Read, who proved to be supportive of his work. Subsequently, Bacon increasingly focused his activities upon painting until it took up all of his working life.

Location: 9 Queensberry Mews West, SW7 2DU. Bacon's home from 1929 to 1932. (orange, red)

King's Place

King s Place (2008) is a commercial property development that stands next to the Regent's Canal. In 2010 the Dixon Jones-designed building housed The Guardian and The Observer newspapers.

Portions of King's Place can be accessed by the public. These include a coffee bar, a restaurant, a gallery in the basement, and two concert halls in the sub-basement. All of the panelling of the No.1 Concert Hall came from a single tree.

The London Sinfonietta and The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment are based in the building.

Location: 90 York Way, N1 9AG (purple, turquoise)

Website: www.kingsplace.co.uk https://londonsinfonietta.org.uk https://oae.co.uk

Rich Mix

Rich Mix is an arts venue and digital media centre that includes three cinemas. The complex opened in 2006 although the organisation was a decade old.

Location: 34-47 Bethnal Green Road, E1 6LA (purple, yellow)

Website: https://richmix.org.uk

Riverside Studios

Location: 101 Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith, W6 9BN

Website: https://riversidestudios.co.uk

The Roundhouse

The Roundhouse (1847) in Chalk Farm Road was designed for the London & Birmingham Railway by Robert Stephenson. Originally, the building was a steam engine turning shed. At the building's centre there was a turntable. However, the rapid growth in the size of engines meant that the structure soon became unable to physically accommodate them. In 1869 it was leased to the Gilbey gin-making business for use as a warehouse. The building served as a bonded liquor store for almost a century.

In 1960 the Trades Union Congress passed Resolution 42, which called for working class theatre to be promoted. In order to transform this into action the playwright Arnold Wesker was given a 100,000 grant with which to set up Centre. Centre 42 launched the following year. Michael Henshaw (1930-2007), a tax inspector who had been a teenage friend of the theatre director John Dexter, was appointed as Centre 42 s administrator. In 1964 the project started to use the Roundhouse as its base. This was the first time that the building had been used as an arts venue. The following year the Roundhouse Trust acquired the structure, thereby saving it from demolition. The building then became one of London s principal arts venues. The pianist and arranger Tommy Watt (1925-2006) launched the Centre 42 Big Band, which became the U.K.'s only big band devoted to jazz.

After the UFO Club had moved to the Roundhouse, Joe Boyd and John Hopkins began to lose money. They closed it. Their weekend nights were taken over by two groups that were suited to increasingly commercial environment. Blackhill Enterprises, which was run by Peter Jenner and Andrew King, and Middle Earth, which was run by Dave Howson. Farren had close links to Blackhill. Therefore, it did not contribute money to the drug offences organisation Release, whereas Middle Earth continued UFO s supportive attitude towards it.

In 1968, following a drugs bust, the Middle Earth nightclub relocated from Covent Garden to the Roundhouse. Pink Floyd and Soft Machine were the first bands to play the Roundhouse. There was no electricity available. They had to run a lead from a neighbouring office building. The groups that performed at the venue included Jefferson Airplane.

It became known that The Doors management wanted the band to make their British debut at The Roundhouse. It was clear that the concert would generate a large amount of cash. Whichever of the two promotion groups staged it would probably be left in a position to oust the other from the venue. Blackhill were in pole position to do so. The company used its link with the Institute of Contemporary Arts to ensure that The Doors secured work permits to enter Britain as cultural figures for what was to prove to be their only U.K. performance. However, Boyd was an American and had his own contacts in the United States. He used these to have Middle Earth awarded the contract. Middle Earth continued to support Release in the years that followed.

The building was occupied by a succession of local authority-funded bodies none of which proved to be able to establish the structure's importance in the city s cultural life. For long periods it was left unused. In 1996 the structure was bought by Torquil Norman, a toy industry tycoon-turned-philanthropist. For years he had been passing the empty building on his way to work and had keenly felt that something should be done to revive it. In 2006 the Roundhouse reopened as an arts venue with a 1800-seat capacity.

Location: 100 Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH (blue, brown)

Website: www.roundhouse.org.uk

The Royal Albert Hall

Prince Albert and his associates decided to use the profits that had been generated by the Great Exhibition of 1851 to develop South Kensington as a cultural and educational district. The prince included a great central hall as part of his vision for the project.¹ After several false starts, Sir Henry Cole devised a plan for raising the money for the hall's construction. This involved selling 1300 seats at 130 apiece - each of these carried the right to attend every performance at the Hall (subsequently, this was to be lowered to c.80 a year). The building was designed by Captain Francis Fowke of the Royal Engineers. It is still owned either by the heirs of the original seat owners or by parties to whom the places have been sold.

In 2003 it was reported that Box 70, a five-seat box, was on the market. The asking price was 250,000 for an 863-year lease. The annual service charge was 3105. At the time, about 1200 of the Royal Albert Hall's seats were still owned privately.

The Royal Albert Hall contains 30 tons of air when empty.

Location: Kensington Gore, SW7 2AP ()

Website: www.royalalberthall.com

¹. This was to become known as Albertpolis.

The South Bank Centre

The South Bank Centre was essentially the creation of a group of Labour Party politicians who were active in London's city government, the likes of Herbert Morrison and Sir Isaac Hayward. They worked in concert with Jennie Lee, who was an Arts Minister in the post-war Labour government.

The 21-acre complex's construction was begun in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain. Through the course of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s a series of arts buildings sprung up around the Royal Festival Hall (1951) on the former festival site: the National Film Theatre (1958), the Queen Elizabeth Hall concert hall (1967), the Purcell Room (1967), The Hayward art gallery (1968), and the Royal National Theatre (1976).

In had been intended that the Royal Festival Hall should have a second complementary hall. However, there had not been time prior to the festival to construct this. The neighbouring site of the lead shot tower was acquired to house the new venue (the Queen Elizabeth Hall (1967), the smaller Purcell Room, and The Hayward Gallery. Norman Engleback (1927-2015), who was a favourite of Leslie Martin, was appointed to lead the design team. In 1956 (Sir) Hubert Bennett (1909-2000) succeeded Martin as the Superintending Architect of Metropolitan Buildings. When he saw what the Engleback team had designed he vetoed it. However, Isaac Hayward, the leader of the L.C.C., overruled him.

The team's first action was to design the National Film Theatre under Waterloo Bridge. This enabled the festival s Telecinema to be demolished. (Howard Robertson's Shell Centre (1961) was built on the site.) Alan Forrest appreciated that most people who used the Royal Festival Hall approached it from the north bank of the Thames. He suggested that broad walkways should be constructed. Engleback switched the venue's principal entrance to its northern side. Within the architectural firm of Brown & Chamberlain, the riverside portion of the Royal Festival Hall was dubbed the Seaside Section . John Attenborough, Warren Chalk, and Ron Herron designed the detailing.

In 1986, following the abolition of the Greater London Council, the South Bank Board quango¹ was set up to take over and manage the GLC's South Bank assets. The Board's members are appointed by the Arts Council government funding body. The former is the largest single recipient of grants that are made by the latter.

Location: Upper Ground, SE1 9GY

Website: www.southbankcentre.co.uk

¹. Quasi-autonomous, non-governmental organisation.

The Royal Festival Hall

In the post-1945 era the London County Council's Architects Department was the foremost collection of architects in Britain. However, the body was a house divided. Many of its members were passionate admirers of Le Corbusier, while others embraced the contemporary Nordic style of Gunnar Asplund and Alvar Aalto. The Royal Festival Hall (1951) was designed by Leslie Martin. He was a member of the latter camp. On some housing estates, the two factions work was represented side-by-side.

See Also: ARCHITECTURE

Website: www.southbankcentre.co.uk/venues/royal-festival-hall

The Watermans Arts Centre

The funds to finance the construction of the Watermans Arts Centre were in large part raised by the actor Peter Howell (1919-2014), who lived locally.

Location: 40 High Street, Brentford, TW8 0DS

Website: www.watermans.org.uk

David Backhouse 2024