Just in: BBC shows off new London concert hall
NewsThe BBC today released first designs for its music studios in East London, opening in 2025 and including a proper concert hall.
The studios, it says, ‘will be a home for the BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, rock and pop sessions, BBC music education and outreach as well as housing one of the largest sheet music collections in the world.’
DG Tim Davie said: ‘I am hugely excited by the potential of the BBC Music Studios to allow us to reach audiences in new ways and to create ambitious music programming that audiences everywhere will enjoy. We’ve been working with local schools on music education and careers sessions and my desire is that not only will big stars be broadcasting from our studios but that we’ll have inspired local talent to work with the BBC on their own doorstep.’
Proms in East London, then?
Image: Flanagan Lawrence Architects / BBC
Thrilling for supporters of West Ham United!
The image suggests that it might be a shoebox design.
Sensible choice.
So far as ‘local talent’ is concerned, I hope the BBC remembers that it is a national institution, not a right-on London one.
Reminds me of Tonhalle Maag.
There’s a more detailed description and general spec at https://www.burohappold.com/projects/bbc-music-studios-at-east-bank/# which shows the project overseers to be Buro Happold with the architects Allies and Morrison.
Anyone briefly excited by the thought of a new concert hall will spot that the total footprint of the site is only 48m x 40m, with the main orchestral studio holding an audience of [only] 300. The entire building provides 8,500m² of space, with – besides the orchestral studio – two large rock and pop studios, and a further 16 acoustically isolated spaces, including recording studios, control rooms and practising rooms.
The acoustic engineers are going to have their work cut out, as the plan stipulates that while an orchestra potentially records on one level, a rock band could be rehearsing just below them.
No mention of any specialist classical music acoustician, but the blurb about one of the two UK partners of Buro Happold named on the scheme says that he has specialised in “sound insulation, structural vibration isolation, and the acoustic performance of ventilation systems … He has a particular interest in very high-performance sound insulation design”. His team of international experts are “passionate about working with clients to provide engineering solutions to outcome-focussed aspirations”.
All planned to be ready for 2025.
On the evidence of this picture I conclude that human beings are under-represented in this BBC orchestra and an internal enquiry should be launched.
Lagging behind USA and Europe, and evidently no lessons learnt from the Barbican.
I see no pipe organ.
Are they suddenly going to try and shoehorn one in when it’s too late, or is it going to be “canned organ”, miked at another venue, and “recreated digitally”?
I think we need to be told.
It does NOT need to be a massive one like the RFH, probably a well-designed instrument of about 50 stops would do for Mahler 8, Berlioz Te Deum, Saint-saens 3, the Poulenc concerto…
Of course, it MIGHT be lurking behind the decor, in which case I apologise most humbly.
A hall which can accommodate 300 listeners will not accommodate a Mahler Eighth or a Berlioz Te Deum, nor a 50-rank pipe organ. This venue seems more to be a replacement for the BBC Maida Vale studios than for the Barbican.
Hmmm… If it is to accommodate BBC Singers, BBC SO, and Chorus… It’s hardly a Purcell Room, tho admittedly not the size of the Musikverein or Concertgebouw main halls.
I admit willingly that concert hall organ recitals are more or less finished in GB, except for the traditional town hall ones, and the medium is better served by churches and cathedrals in London, but all the same, lack of even a medium-size pipe organ seems unwise.
What about the concert orchestra
They’re moving to Great Yarmouth. For three years at any rate.
Be surprised if this gets past the desk of Nadine Dorries without leaving some blood stains on the carpet!
Munich is in the act in a major way
https://www.konzerthaus-muenchen.de/en/
Where exactly in East London?
It covers a rather wide area!
15 seconds on the internet produced this from the Evening Standard:
“The studios, in the Stratford East Bank development at the Olympic Park, will become home to the Radio 1 Live Lounge and BBC Proms.”
Why would the Proms be in East London? What a pointless statement…
What’s the audience capacity of the concert hall?
Exciting news for the Beeb – this has been a long time coming. The new space looks rather nice – hopefully it sounds as warm as it looks.
I do wonder if it will be versatile enough for the variety of projects the groups do on a regular basis?
Sounds great but I hope they don’t have seats one behind the other as shown as even on a rake it’s difficult to see when someone with a big head or someone fat (sorry) is plonked in front of you.
It should be all about the sound; who cares if you can see the stage fully? It is a concert hall, not an opera house.
What a hideous nothing. It could be worse, but it could be a millions times better. Modernism is just all wrong for concert halls.
Looks it might possibly sound good.
Yes, good sound is of course the most important thing, but after that, having something to look at while listening, something inspiring, is the next most important. And decorative details improve acoustics. Not having a back wall to the stage is a big acoustic problem. And who wants to look at more audience behind the orchestra?
They are choir stalls for the BBC Symphony Chorus – it’s a recording studio primarily, with some audience seats.
The location will be Stratford East Bank, according to ‘The Evening Standard’.
From an official press release by the Mayor’s office:
WHAT IS EAST BANK?
Work is now well underway across the Park to build East Bank – our world-leading new powerhouse for innovation, creativity and learning.
The London 2012 Games were a great success but the legacy would always be more than a wonderful summer of sport. Key to the long-term success is the impact of the wider regeneration of the area and the creation of new opportunities for Londoners for decades to come.
East Bank – one of the world’s largest and most ambitious culture and education districts – is central to that long-term legacy creating a powerhouse for artistic excellence, learning, research, performance and exhibitions. It represents a unique prospect for London and a concept that is almost unparalleled on the international stage.
World-renowned universities UCL (University College London) and UAL’s London College of Fashion will join the global cultural brands of the BBC, Sadler’s Wells and the V&A to create this centre of innovation and ambition. This part of London has always been a place of firsts where canals and lock gates opened early industry; rockets and bone china were first fired; and Joan Littlewood transformed theatre into a people’s palace at Stratford Theatre Royal.
Spread across three sites at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, East Bank will be at the heart of a growing cluster of commerce, technology, manufacture, retail, education and the creative arts delivering unprecedented new job opportunities in the digital age. It will bring an additional 1.5 million visitors to the Park and surrounding area each year, and more than 2,500 jobs will be created by East Bank – generating an estimated £1.5 billion generation for the local economy.
No mention of all the homes and businesses dispossessed by the massive state-sponsored land-grab on the pretext of a fortnight’s sport competition.
Compulsory purchase orders are far too easy to obtain. Personally, I think that compulsory purchase should be banned, and replaced with compulsory lease, whereby the dispossessed person or organisation remains the freeholder, and receives ground rent at a rate reflecting the commercial value of the land after redevelopment, plus sufficient compensation to relocate to new premises at least as good (both in terms of size and location) as the ones he/she is compelled to vacate. This would prevent abuses of compulsory purchase powers to obtain land on the cheap, “regenerate” the area, then sell for a massive profit.
Looks like an upscaled version of Milton Court or King’s Place, so probably too small for the Proms. Presumably it also means that the BBC SO (assuming the Tories haven’t axed it by then) will perform here rather than the Barbican once it opens. Fine by me as long as the acoustics are OK. As a major hub station, Stratford is easier to get to by public transport than the Barbican for the majority of Londoners, and the catering options in and around the Westfield centre are much better too.
“assuming the Tories haven’t axed it by then”
If it is axed, it will be a decision taken by the BBC, deciding that its £billions should be spent elsewhere.
The BBC has too many fingers in too many pies.
“The BBC has too many fingers in too many pies.”
Yeah sure, ditch the licence fee and leave everything up to the free market. The Fox News Philharmonic is bound to fill the gap
How about ditching the domination of local news which has been detrimental to local papers and local journalists, for starters?
And ditch June Sarpong and her costly, unnecessary department while you’re at it.
Stratford station is indeed a “major hub”, but it is an overcrowded mess with a lot of suboptimal connections (among the more egregious being the splitting of the North London line into London Overground and DLR, such that you can no longer do Dalston to Woolwich without changing trains at Stratford, and it is a long walk between those platforms! Oh, and then there is the absurd idea of positioning Stratford International station a 5-minute walk away, rather than directly above/underneath the main Stratford station — this sabotages an otherwise excellent interchange for people travelling between Essex and Kent… if only this had been done properly, and the fares for the HS1 route to Ebbsfleet/Ashford kept reasonable, then the Dartford Crossing would not be so overcrowded).
There is no way that one can describe Stratford as better connected than the Barbican “for the majority of Londoners”. The Barbican is within easy walking distance of Liverpool Street, Bank, and Farringdon. Between them, these three stations, all of them major hubs, provide efficient direct access to much of London (inner and outer) and many destinations farther afield (including five airports — Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Southend, & City… and when Crossrail opens fully, there will be direct services to Heathrow as well). Crucially, there is a mixture of ‘local’ and express services in various directions, unlike Stratford, where the only express services are into Essex and Kent (if you count Stratford International). Many of the direct train services into Stratford from other parts of London are so slow as to be overtaken by options that involve interchange (e.g.: Clapham Junction — you could get a direct London Overground service to Stratford, but you would be better off getting a SWR train to Waterloo then Jubilee line to Stratford).
I am not one of those snobs who think that only locations in TfL zone 1 are any good. I do believe, for example, that East Croydon is an excellent transport hub, and that the Fairfield Halls should be used and promoted more heavily as a major venue suitable for classical music. But let us not pretend that Stratford is better connected than the Barbican.
. . . & the architects are????
Allies & Morrison are doing the Base Build, and Flanagan Lawrence are leading the internal fit out team, covering the acoustics and internal finishes.
Where in East London?
Funny, I don’t remember a Sitar being played in any of Beethoven or Handel’s compositions. So why East London?
What is an aspiration that is NOT “outcome-focussed”?
Is that consultant possibly thinking of another sort of aspiration, as he is much enthused by ventilation?
This sort of management-consultant gobbledy-speak [see brief example in my posting above] brings back happy memories of the good old days when the upper tiers of suits at the BBC communicated in a peculiarly incomprehensible language which was to become known as Birt-speak.