London's National Theatre submits £70m facelift plans
16th June 2010
London’s National Theatre has submitted a planning application for a £70m facelift for its Grade II listed home. Theatre director Nicholas Hytner said he wanted “to open our building up to audiences, passers-by and the local community”. If Lambeth Council gives the go-ahead this autumn, work is due to start by early 2012, dependent upon fundraising.
The theatre, situated on the Thames in central London, hopes some of the development will be completed by 2013. However, a theatre spokeswoman could not say when the project would be finished. The theatre hopes to raise £50m from the private sector and £20m from other sources like the the National Lottery.
The design, by architects Haworth Tompkins, includes plans to refurbish the theatre on all sides, drawing more people in with green spaces and gardens.
Practice director Steve Tompkins said: ‘The project came out of the desire to make the whole building more welcoming and the whole operation more communicative to the outside world. The north-east corner – currently a goods yard – will contain a recessed café and a new entrance addressing the westward flow of traffic. A visitor centre will be added to the Cottesloe Theatre’s entrance and a back-of-house walkway will allow visitors to move internally between the Cottesloe and Lyttelton theatres.
The project’s new-build element is a four-storey workshop featuring aluminium mullions at 600mm intervals with a glazed ground-floor plinth. Visitors approaching from the Upper Ground road will be able to see prop-makers and set designers at work.
‘The workshop is a lightweight vessel moored along the dockside of the existing building,’ said Tompkins, emphasising the practice’s sympathetic approach to the ‘hermetic’ National Theatre. ‘It would be wrong to completely break down the solidity of the structure.’
Mr Hytner added the building would “break down the National’s walls” and “contribute to the regeneration of the South Bank”.
Source: BBC News Architects Journal
