Alexandra Palace East Wing Regeneration Project

The regeneration of the East Wing of the 'People’s Palace' has breathed new life into a much-loved cultural icon, bringing spaces that have been inaccessible to the public for 80 years back into use. Focussed on the Victorian Theatre, East Court and adjoining areas, some far-reaching interventions were called for, but of paramount importance was the preservation of the evocative and layered character that made these spaces unique – a fragile quality that could have been destroyed by well-meaning repair. After its opening in 1875, and although initially successful, audiences for the Alexandra Palace theatre soon dwindled. The space then served as a cinema and, during the First World War, as a chapel and hospital. When the BBC occupied the East Wing of the Palace from 1936 - inaugurating the world’s first scheduled television broadcast – the theatre became their props store and scenery workshop. Finally, for 30 years, the space lay abandoned and almost forgotten. This eventful history is legible on the surfaces and in the fabric of the building: its inception in a period of grandeur, overlaid with decades of alteration, damage and slow decay. All of this is integral to the atmosphere, the character and the story of this space. Working in close collaboration with the client, our approach to bringing the theatre back to life was thus a conservation and a business planning challenge. While the theatre is unique in many ways, the London theatre scene is highly competitive, and Ally Pally is a long way from the West End hub. Attracting new audiences to a space that was unknown was a major challenge. Our approach was to focus first on what makes Ally Pally theatre unique – its extraordinary scale, richly evocative interiors and its potential to provide an exceptionally atmospheric but highly flexible space. Our work preserves this special character while carrying out significant alterations and insertions. The services and infrastructure demanded by contemporary theatrical production have been meticulously and discreetly integrated into the listed fabric of the building. Behind the scenes, extensive engineering works have been undertaken. The theatre’s sloping floor has been replaced with a new, level one. This enables performances to be drawn out from the stage into the auditorium itself in contemporary formats never conceived by its Victorian designers. Seating was added above the two side corridors built in a 1920s remodelling, the better to surround performers with their audience. We also inserted an entirely new circle balcony structure immediately above the original, to increase the rake and improve sightlines into the middle of the auditorium. The result is a sense of intimacy that’s surprising for such a large space. Above this voluminous room, the roof structure has been re-engineered to support a grid of 64 rigging points which carry the scenery, lighting and audio equipment necessary for modern productions. These extensive works, however, are masked by the elaborate plasterwork ceiling. Found to be in very fragile condition, it has been conserved and consolidated from above but, where pieces were missing or damaged, they have not been restored. As with other historic surfaces, the ceiling is treated and presented “as found”; as an artefact that tells of the opulence, decay and rebirth of the theatre. In a sense, our challenge has been to change everything yet to change nothing. Ultimately, we wanted people to have the same reaction to the space that we had ourselves when we first saw it before the project began. The East Court, a vast glazed space originally conceived as an exhibition hall, has many roles to play in the contemporary Palace complex. It provides an important public face to the Palace, as well as being seen as an extension of the park. It is now an entrance hall, an exhibition space, a venue for functions and events, a meeting place. It is a multi-functional, accessible space, welcoming visitors in to learn about the people and events that define the extraordinary 140-year story of the ‘People’s Palace’, bringing this history to life for the broadest possible audience, and providing opportunities for visitors to create their own connections and stories. The exhibition design here embodies the long history of stage and scenery at the Palace, using a language of demountable, large-scale structures that can be reconfigured to tell future stories as the Palace reassumes its place in contemporary London. Vital to the success of reinventing this space for its many uses, and key to attracting new audiences, was the need to express the sense of fun and spectacle that the Palace has always embodied. This is not the place for architectural solemnity. A major intervention is the new floor, designed to provide the canvas for a vibrant 1000sqm artwork painted by graphic artists Art+Believe. Elsewhere, a new decorative scheme for the Victorian fabric has been implemented, based on ‘paint scrapes’ and historic research into previous colour schemes. This does not reinstate any particular earlier colour scheme, but is built up from elements of these. The outcome is not slavish replication, but an informed and coherent scheme that brings together the character of the space and its contents. In developing and describing an approach for this project, we used the term “arrested decay” to describe an approach of consolidation rather than restoration. We addressed the mechanisms of deterioration, removed elements that were unsafe or could not viably be repaired, and presented the result to public view as a direct manifestation of the stories embodied in all of these spaces. “The biggest injection in funding in a generation, the East Wing project has achieved so much for the Palace, not just the physical restoration but our ability to engage new audiences and deliver a broader spectrum of entertainment, and FCBStudios’ desire, determination, skills and experience were fundamental to this. We are delighted with the outcome and we hope FCBStudios are as proud as we are of this monumental chapter in Alexandra Palace’s journey to becoming a vibrant cultural icon for London.” Emma Dagnes, Deputy Chief Executive, Alexandra Palace.