The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames (between Hungerford Bridge and Waterloo Bridge). It comprises three main performance venues (the Royal Festival Hall including the Nati ...

, one of

central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

Henry Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest E ...

and has 370 seats. The Purcell Room has hosted a wide range of

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small nu ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

mime Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of email messages to support text in character sets other than ASCII, as well as attachments of audio, video, images, and application programs. Message ...

and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

recitals. In the context of the

it is the smallest of a set of three venues, the other two being the

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a Grade I li ...

, a large symphony hall, and the QEH, which is used for orchestral, chamber and contemporary amplified music. The Purcell Room was built at the same time as the QEH, with which it shared a common foyer building and architectural features as an example of

Brutalist architecture Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the ...

. The focus of the building is its interior space and it makes few concessions to external decoration. From outside, even its position within

is not easy to discern. The QEH and Purcell Room were designed, with The Hayward, as additions to the

arts complex by

Hubert Bennett Sir Hubert Bennett, FRIBA (4 September 1909 – 13 December 2000) was a British architect. He was Architect to the Greater London Council (formerly the London County Council) and Superintending Architect of Metropolitan Buildings from 1956 to 19 ...

, head of the architects department of the

Greater London Council The Greater London Council (GLC) was the top-tier local government administrative body for Greater London from 1965 to 1986. It replaced the earlier London County Council (LCC) which had covered a much smaller area. The GLC was dissolved in 198 ...

, with Jack Whittle, F.G West and Geoffrey Horsefall. The venue was temporarily closed in September 2015, for major renovations, and re-opened in 2018.

Architecture

The Purcell Room stands between the QEH auditorium and The Hayward, aligned parallel to

Waterloo Bridge Waterloo Bridge () is a road and foot traffic bridge crossing the River Thames in London, between Blackfriars Bridge and Hungerford Bridge and Golden Jubilee Bridges. Its name commemorates the victory of the British, Dutch and Prussians at t ...

, with the stage backing on to the side of the QEH auditorium (the north-west end). The auditorium is cantilevered out over the centre access road and its rear façade faces the entrance to The Hayward. The auditorium is reported to be fitted with a Helmholtz resonator to allow its acoustic properties to be modified. The access link from the foyer building (shared with the QEH) is through a massive sculpted concrete casing, visible from outside the entrance to The Hayward, near the overhead bridge. The artists' foyer is between the Purcell Room and QEH auditoriums at ground level. The treatment of the ventilation services is an early example of the external treatment of such equipment. This idea later reached a peak in the

Centre Georges Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

in Paris and

Lloyd's building The Lloyd's building (sometimes known as the Inside-Out Building) is the home of the insurance institution Lloyd's of London. It is located on the former site of East India House in Lime Street, in London's main financial district, the City o ...

in London in the 1970s and 80s respectively. The roof of the building, which is supported independently of the auditorium, holds the plant room for both the QEH and the Purcell Room. The plant room's three massive vents are housed high above the walkway near the entrance to the Hayward and also towards the Waterloo Bridge side of the north corner of the roof. Large concrete ducts lead from the plant room: vertically to the foyer building below via the mysterious concrete tower, and horizontally to the QEH auditorium.

References

ARUP JOURNAL: South Bank Arts Centre; Architects: H. Bennett, Greater London Council chief architect 1967 July, p. 20-31 ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW: South Bank Arts Centre, London borough of Lambeth; Architects: H. Bennett, architect to the Greater London Council vol. 144, no. 857, 1968 July, p. 14-30 OFFICIAL ARCHITECTURE & PLANNING: South Bank Cultural Centre, London borough of Lambeth; Architect: H. Bennett, chief architect of the Greater London Council 1969 Aug., p. 918-923

References

External links

Southbank Centre website
(covers Purcell Room also for bookings)
LondonDance website
(Dance listings and venues)
The Stage website
(Listings information)
Explore-london.co.uk website
(Photographs, including parts of Purcell Room building)
https://www.flickr.com/groups/southbankcentre/
(A Flickr group dedicated to pictures of the Southbank Centre) {{authority control Brutalist architecture in London Buildings and structures in the London Borough of Lambeth Concert halls in London Southbank Centre Tourist attractions in the London Borough of Lambeth