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

Southbank Centre Southbank Centre is an arts centre in London, England. It is adjacent to the separately owned National Theatre and BFI Southbank. It comprises the three main performance spaces – the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, and Purcell R ...

, one of

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

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

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 of Baroque music, most remembered for his more than 100 songs; a tragic opera, Dido and Aeneas, ''Dido and Aeneas''; and his incidental music to a version o ...

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 Musical instrument, instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a Great chamber, palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music ...

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. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

mime A mime artist, or simply mime (from Greek language, Greek , , "imitator, actor"), is a person who uses ''mime'' (also called ''pantomime'' outside of Britain), the acting out of a story through body motions without the use of speech, as a the ...

and

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

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, England. 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 G ...

, a large symphony hall, and the

Queen Elizabeth Hall The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts European classical music, classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by ...

(QEH), which is used for orchestral, chamber and contemporary amplified music. The Purcell Room was built at the same time as the Queen Elizabeth Hall, 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 Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

. 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 Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room were designed, with The Hayward, as additions to the

arts complex by Hubert Bennett, 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 Queen Elizabeth Hall (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 the ...

, 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 Helmholtz resonance, also known as wind throb, refers to the phenomenon of air resonance in a cavity, an effect named after the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz. This type of resonance occurs when air is forced in and out of a cavity (the re ...

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 (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team 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, London, Lime Street, in London's main financial d ...

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

External links

Purcell Room on Southbank Centre website
(covers Purcell Room also for bookings)
Explore-london.co.uk website
(Photographs, including parts of Purcell Room building) {{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