 Southbank Centre's 11 acre former estate extended fromWaterloo Bridge to theLondon Eye | |
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| Full name | Southbank Centre |
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| Address | Belvedere Road London,SE1 United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 51°30′20.56″N00°07′0.34″W / 51.5057111°N 0.1167611°W /51.5057111; -0.1167611 |
| Public transit |  Waterloo Waterloo |
| Owner | Southbank Centre Ltd. (registered charity, responsible toArts Council England) |
| Designation | Unlisted |
| Type | Artistic venues: Royal Festival Hall Queen Elizabeth Hall Purcell Room Hayward Gallery |
| Capacity | Royal Festival Hall: 2,700 Queen Elizabeth Hall: >900 Purcell Room: 370 |
| Acreage | 11 |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 1 May 1951; 73 years ago (1951-05-01) |
| Architect | Norman Engleback's team at theLondon County Council Architects' Department |
| Website | |
| www | |
TheSouthbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues inLondon, England, on theSouth Bank of theRiver Thames (betweenHungerford Bridge andWaterloo Bridge). It is adjacent to the separately ownedNational Theatre, containing three theatres, andBFI Southbank, which has four cinemas and a library.
The Southbank Centre comprises three main performance venues (theRoyal Festival Hall including theNational Poetry Library, theQueen Elizabeth Hall and thePurcell Room), together with theHayward Gallery, and is Europe’s largest centre for the arts. It attracted 4.36 million visitors during 2019.[1] Over two thousand paid performances of music, dance and literature are staged at Southbank Centre each year, as well as over two thousand free events and an education programme,[2] in and around the performing arts venues. In addition, three to six major art exhibitions are presented at the Hayward Gallery yearly, and national touring exhibitions reach over 100 venues across the UK.
Southbank Centre's site, which formerly extended to 21 acres (85,000 m2) fromCounty Hall toWaterloo Bridge, is fronted byThe Queen's Walk. In 2012 management ofJubilee Gardens transferred to the Jubilee Gardens Trust[3] and the car park on the remaining land beyondHungerford Bridge was sold in 2013, to extend the gardens as part of theShell Centre redevelopment.[4]
The closestUnderground stations areWaterloo andEmbankment.
Misan Harriman became chairman of the Board of Governors of the Southbank Centre in 2022, succeeding Susan Gilchrist, who had held the role since 2016.[5]Elaine Bedell was appointed as Chief Executive in 2017; from 2009 to 2016 that position was held by Alan Bishop, former chairman ofSaatchi & Saatchi International and Chief Executive of theCentral Office of Information.
September 2005 saw the arrival ofJude Kelly as the centre's Artistic Director. After Kelly stepped down in order to devote herself to theWomen of the World Festival,Madani Younis (previously Artistic Director at theBush Theatre) was appointed to the new role of Creative Director from January 2019,[6][7][8] to work alongside Gillian Moore, the Director of Music, andRalph Rugoff, Director of the Hayward Gallery. Younis resigned in October 2019.[9][10]
The role of artistic director remained vacant until the appointment of the former creative director ofManchester International Festival,Mark Ball who took up his position at the Southbank in January 2022.[11][12]
The history of Southbank Centre starts with theFestival of Britain, held in 1951. In what was described as "a tonic for the nation" byHerbert Morrison, theLabour Party government minister responsible for the event, the Festival of Britain aimed to demonstrate Britain’s recovery fromWorld War II by showcasing the best in science, technology, arts and industrial design. It ran from May to September 1951, and by June the following year most of it had been dismantled, following the victory ofWinston Churchill and theConservative Party in the general election of 1951. The Royal Festival Hall is the only building from the Festival of Britain that survives.
From 1962 to 1965, the Royal Festival Hall was extended towards the river andWaterloo station and refurbished. TheLondon County Council (later,Greater London Council) decided in 1955 to build a second concert hall and an art gallery on the eastern part of the South Bank site previously occupied by a lead works andshot tower (and which had been earmarked as a site for theNational Theatre). It was another 12 years before theQueen Elizabeth Hall and the linkedPurcell Room opened to the public. Together, they were to be known as South Bank Concert Halls. In 1968, the Hayward opened, under direct management of theArts Council. The new buildings had their main entrances at first floor level and were integrated into an extensive elevated concrete walkway system linked to the Royal Festival Hall and theShell Centre. This vertical separation of pedestrian and vehicle traffic proved unpopular due to the difficulty pedestrians had in navigating through the complex, and the dark and under-used spaces at ground level below the walkways.
Following abolition of the Greater London Council in 1986, the South Bank Board was formed to take over operational control of the concert halls. The following year, the South Bank Board took over the administrative running of the Hayward from theArts Council. Collectively, the arts venues, along with Jubilee Gardens, became the South Bank Centre, responsible to Arts Council England as an independent arts institution (after transitional arrangements).
The walkway on the east side of the RFH, running along Belvedere Road towards theShell Centre was removed in 1999–2000, to restore ground level circulation. The Waterloo Site (the late 1960s buildings) has been the subject of various plans for modification or reconstruction, in particular a scheme developed byRichard Rogers in the mid-1990s which would have involved a great glass roof over the existing three buildings. This did not proceed due to the high degree of National Lottery funding required and likely high cost.
In 2000, a masterplan for the South Bank Centre site was produced. The main features were
In line with the plans, in 2006-7 a new glass-fronted building was created to provide office space for Southbank Centre staff as well as a range of new shops and restaurants. This was inserted between the RFH and the approach viaduct toHungerford Bridge. New restaurants and shops along the low level Thames elevation of the Royal Festival Hall replaced an earlier cafeteria area and accompanied pedestrianisation of this frontage, achieved by removing the circulation road. Between 2005 and 2007 the Festival Hall auditorium was modified, the natural acoustic enhanced to meet classical music requirements. Seating was also reconfigured, together with upgrades to production facilities and public areas, with provision of new bar areas, the removal of most shops from foyer spaces, and refurbished lifts and WCs.
In early 2013 the Southbank Centre unveiled plans, which soon became a source of vigorous debate, for alterations to the Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall dubbed the "Festival Wing", funded byArts Council England. The proposal would have provided arts spaces in a new high level L-shaped building linking the Hayward Gallery and Purcell Room buildings and with a wing running parallel to Waterloo Bridge behind the Queen Elizabeth Hall auditorium. Its features were to include a glass pavilion, new arts spaces, a literature centre, cafes and commercial units.[13]
The proposed alterations would have replaced the skate park which has developed in theundercroft, hailed as the birthplace of British skateboarding, with retail units to fund the new arts spaces.[14][15] By May 2014, the campaign group strongly opposing the proposals calledLong Live Southbank had gained over 120,000 members.[16][17] As well as the skateboarders, theNational Theatre also had objections.[18]
In early 2014, the scheme was put on hold when the Mayor of London, thenBoris Johnson, said he would not support removal of the skateboarding area from theQueen Elizabeth Hall undercroft to under Hungerford Bridge. The development of the undercroft area was a key commercial and financing feature of the Festival Wing new building proposal and the scheme could not proceed in its proposed form without the commercial development or substitute funding which was not available in the amounts required.
Arts Council England awarded a £16m grant towards a two-year programme of repairs and conservation work on theQueen Elizabeth Hall,Purcell Room andHayward Gallery in May 2014[19] and the scheme was granted planning permission in May 2015.[20] The Southbank Centre also received funding for the conservation and limited alteration scheme, known as "Let the Light In", from theHeritage Lottery Fund[21] and was raising funds from individuals for the final £3 million required.
This more conservation-orientated approach has also included joining with theNational Trust to make the centre's 1960s buildings' contribution to theBrutalist movement better known.[22] The buildings re-opened in 2018 following completion of the works.
In response to theCOVID-19 pandemic, which halted live performances and closed exhibitions, most of the centre's 600 employees were furloughed, and in July 2020 up to 400 were expected to be made redundant.[23] The Hayward Gallery reopened in August but the Royal Festival Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall were expected to remain closed until April 2021.[24]
The resident orchestras at Southbank Centre are:
Festival Wing undercroft to be refurbished and skate park moved to nearby Hungerford bridge, but skaters aren't happy ... It has carved a place in counter-cultural history – a concrete enclave on London's South Bank beloved by skateboarders that has appeared in countless magazines and films. The undercroft at the Southbank Centre is hailed as the birthplace of British skateboarding, a spot that has nurtured the homegrown talents of skateboard professionals such as Lewis "Chewie" Cannon, Ben Fairfax and Joey Pressey. The space is also used by BMX bikers and graffiti artists, and has become the urban arts foil to the high cultural offerings of the Southbank Centre. The proposals for the Festival Wing would see the undercroft replaced by retail units, which are expected to pay for a third of the financing for the refurbishment.
When skateboarding hit Britain in the 1970s, it gave an unexpected new lease of life to a disused space under London's Southbank centre. Now the undercroft is viewed as one of the best unplanned skate parks in Europe: thousands of visitors to the South Bank of the Thames stop to admire tricks being performed against a constantly evolving backdrop of graffiti and street art. But the Southbank Centre wants to relocate the skaters in 2014 to provide commercial space to fund a major refurbishment of the Festival Wing (the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward gallery).The Guardian reported that an online petition against the move has gathered 30,000 signatures.
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51°30′20.56″N00°07′0.34″W / 51.5057111°N 0.1167611°W /51.5057111; -0.1167611
