Royal Opera House project manager Sarah Younger explained the latest project’s ambitions: “We want to open up the building so that it becomes more than just a ticketed theatre. The foyer of the basement Linbury Theatre has now been linked into the main foyer Opening up As well as major reconstruction and expansion of key parts of the building, including the magnificent glass Paul Hamlyn Hall, for the first time the Dixon Jones scheme created a new rear entrance directly on to the piazza, and enhancing this was a key part of Stanton Williams’ brief. As might be expected, the enduring presence of this scheme looms large over the current works. Of course in the current building’s long history there has been one other major reworking, Dixon Jones’ heroic £200m overhaul of 1983-99. Crucially, the revamp also seeks to improve the opera house’s rear entrance onto the piazza. Additionally, circulation space has been extensively reorganised, and the number of toilets doubled. While Edward Barry’s original historic facade, foyer and 2,200-capacity auditorium of 1858 have been left virtually untouched, architect Stanton Williams has provided new entrances and new foyer spaces and radically reworked attendant restaurant and recital spaces. The institution’s £37m Open Up expansion and refurbishment programme was completed earlier this month. It is this social and historic anomaly that the Royal Opera House’s latest revamp seeks to address. Consequently, like the British Museum and the original environs of Westminster Cathedral, in the Royal Opera House we see the main entrance to yet another major London public building relegated to a side street.
In most continental cities the Royal Opera House would probably have a grand entrance facing on to Inigo Jones’ seminal Covent Garden Piazza.īut when the first iteration of the present opera house opened in 1732, London’s voracious private property market all but demanded that the established residential structure (and commercial revenue) of the piazza be preserved, thereby roundly trumping public entertainment. One of London’s many oddities is that for hundreds of years the neighbouring landmarks of the capital’s most prestigious performance venue and its showcase public square effectively turned their backs on each other. Building Boardroom Digital Construction AcademyĪ newly expanded entrance foyer offers direct views out onto Bow Street through a new glazed screen.Construction Business: Strategy, Risk and Regulations.
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