Barbicans for the 21st century: London's new neighbourhoods are being transformed by museums, galleries and performance spaces
The smell of greasepaint and the roar of the crowd have inspired generations of performers. Now house builders are harnessing the thrill of live music and drama, art, and exhibitions to lure buyers to London’s new cultural hubs.
A series of new museums, theatres, cinemas, art galleries and performance spaces are proving popular in new-build areas, helping to establish a community, offering opportunities for people to meet and establish a sense of identity. Culture in all its guises crosses the divide for new renters and buyers, singles and families on a range of incomes enjoying and sharing events.
STRATFORD AND THE ‘EAST BANK’
The most ambitious example of the trend is at Stratford, where a £1.1 billion vision for a cultural hub at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park is rapidly taking shape. By 2023 the park will be home to the London College of Fashion and the BBC’s music-recording operations, as well as a new 550-seat Sadler’s Wells theatre.
Last month details of the V&A’s plans for east London were revealed — two interconnected sites providing a new museum and a research centre, which will also open in 2023. The V&A is working with the Smithsonian Institution on the project, which it promises will “reinvent the idea of a museum” with 250,000 exhibits from the V&A’s fashion, textiles, furniture, theatre and performance collections, plus paintings, sculpture, ceramics, glass, design, architecture and digital.
“I think it is the final piece of the puzzle that was missing in Stratford,” says Simon Hart, sales manager of Foxtons. “At the moment if residents want to go to a museum or see a show they have to go to central London.”
Hart believes the “East Bank” will help draw more people towards Stratford, both to visit and to live. “With the V&A and Sadler’s Wells they have chosen two pretty established cultural brands, which you would hope would draw people to the area,” he says. “It will be a big attraction, as well as the wider Olympic Park.”
Cultural amenities also help give new homes developments a bit of buzz: imagine the concrete wasteland Barbican would be without the Barbican Centre. And Hart points out that with most first-time buyers now well into their twenties or thirties, a bit of sophisticated entertainment might hold more appeal than a nightclub or lots of bars.
At New Garden Quarter, a mix of rental, shared-ownership and private sale homes — 471 in total — is being built on land used as car parking during the 2012 Olympics. The first residents moved in last month and the site will be built out by next summer. Prices for one-bedroom flats start at £435,000.
Meanwhile, housing association Notting Hill Genesis has shared-ownership homes on offer, priced from £101,875 for a 25 per cent share of a one-bedroom flat, and Folio London has rental homes from £1,615 a month for a one-bedroom flat, or £1,870 for a two-bedroom flat.
Stratford has very much embraced the whole build to rent concept, and at the upscale Manhattan Loft Gardens, 248 furnished apartments will be available from the start of next month. One-bedroom lofts start at £1,909 per month, with two-bedroom lofts from £2,403.
At London City Island, on the Leamouth Peninsula at Canning Town, just over 1,700 new homes are being built on a 12-acre site, with prices starting at £420,000.
The first residents moved in two years ago, and as part of the mixed development, which includes an outdoor pool, social club, gym, deli-bar and a range of shops, there is a strong artistic edge.
English National Ballet and English National Ballet School will both move next year to a new purpose-built landmark home on the island designed by Glenn Howells Architects, while London Film School is moving across from Covent Garden in 2020, bringing with it two cinemas, studios and up to 200 students.
London City Island already has the contemporary Arebyte Gallery, which moved over from Hackney Wick last year, and Trinity Art Gallery, which opened in February.
EALING AND THE MOVIES
Keen on culture, Berkeley Homes has embraced the trend wholeheartedly at a series of developments both top-end and more mainstream. At Ealing Filmworks movie-loving Londoners with £599,950 to spend on a one-bedroom flat or £849,950 for a two-bedroom flat will be in their element with an on-site eight-screen Picturehouse cinema, based in a restored Art Deco movie theatre, the Empire Cinema, due to open in 2020.
TOWER BRIDGE AND THE BRIDGE THEATRE
At the landmark One Tower Bridge residential development things are somewhat more highbrow.
The on-site, 900-seat Bridge Theatre, run by Sir Nicholas Hytner and Nick Starr, both veterans of the National Theatre, opened last autumn, and is currently showing A Very Very Very Dark Matter starring Jim Broadbent.
The development has sold out but there are opportunities to pick up resale properties, including a four-bedroom apartment with great views of Tower Bridge, listed with Chestertons for £7.95 million.
BATTERSEA POWER STATION PERFORMANCE SPACE
There are few higher-profile London new homes schemes than Battersea Power Station, where 4,364 homes will be served not only by their own Tube station plus 250 shops, cafés and restaurants, but also by a series of indoor and outdoor entertainment “platforms” including The Venue, a flexible performance space which would work for live music or fashion shows.
The power station’s original Art Deco control room, as seen in the film The King’s Speech, will become an intimate 250-seat auditorium, while it is planned to use the six-acre Power Station Park for live music.
Circus West Village, the first phase of the redevelopment, features public art including original murals and sculpture, and has its own 5,000sq ft multi-use arts venue.
Cultural events, including art exhibitions and a children’s literary festival, have been staged there over the past 18 months, and local residents have formed the Battersea Power Station Community Choir.
Homes at the current phase of Battersea Power Station are priced from £550,000.