Summary
Former combined cinema and variety theatre, opened in 1930. It was built to designs by J Stanley Beard as part of J Stanley Breard and Clare, for Herbert A Yapp’s Wyanbee Theatres. It was taken over by ABC in 1935 and came to be used exclusively as a cinema. Between 1970 and 1996 the auditoriums, stage area and fly tower were subdivided into six cinema screens. The building underwent refurbishment in the 1980s by Tessa Kennedy. In 2019, it came under management and was refurbished by Picturehouse Cinema.
Reasons for Designation
The Picturehouse, (formerly The Forum), 142-150 Fulham Road, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, completed in 1930 as a combined cinema and variety theatre, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:
* it has an impressive architectural composition, with a prominent and elaborate curving entrance bay combined with a well-detailed symmetrical elevation facing onto Fulham Road;
* it has strong external Classical and Art-Deco-style detailing and good use of materials to create an opulent design, including cream and blue tile, and bronze panelling (later painted), which contrast well with the red brickwork;
* the interior has been subject to various phases of alteration and modernisation; however, legible evidence for its internal plan-form includes the survival of key circulation areas such as the spatial forms of the entrance foyer and former tearoom above, as well as the principal and secondary staircases, and the visible elements of original internal features and decoration.
Historic interest:
* it was designed by the well-known theatre and cinema architect J Stanley Beard for the small entertainment circuit Wyanbee Theatres, and is an architecturally accomplished example of his work.
History
The former Forum, 142-150 Fulham Road, is located on a rectangular plot at the corner of Fulham Road and Drayton Gardens. It was designed as a combined cinema with full stage facilities by the architect John Stanley Coombe Beard FRIBA (1890-1970), while working with Alfred Douglas Clare as part of J Stanley Beard and Clare. It was built for Herbert A Yapp’s small Wyanbee Theatres circuit in London.
J Stanley Beard was an architect and garden designer, who specialised in cinemas, theatres and music halls. He designed several entertainment facilities across London. He became a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1927. His work includes the former Capital Cinema, Forest Hill (1928 to 1929; Grade II, National Heritage List for England (NHLE) entry 1253032). The Forum on Fulham Road was one of at least three buildings designed by Beard for the small Wyanbee Threates; Beard was also the chairman of the group. Other cinemas included the Forum Cinema, Kentish Town Road (1934, Grade II, NHLE entry 1379018) and the Forum Ealing (1934, only the façade survives).
The Forum on Fulham Road was constructed in 1930, and building work was overseen by Bovis Construction Limited. It was equipped with 2200 seats on two levels, stalls and circle, and a thirty-foot deep stage and a forty-five-foot-wide double proscenium arch. It had six dressing rooms and a Compton three-manual/ eight-rank organ. The auditorium was topped by an eighty-foot-wide coffered dome. The Forum opened on 18 December 1930 with a program of entertainment that included a screening of The Storm starring Lupez Velez, as well as a variety stage show with a 24-piece orchestra. The interior decoration included walls lined with fluted Corinthian pilasters, mural depicting Italian pastoral scenes and pairs of griffins embellishing panels above the entrances on either side of the stage. There were bars and lounges on the south side of the building, at least one of which was decorated with further murals. The walls of the entrance and principal staircase leading up to the circle were lined with marble. Underfloor ducts and heating pipes ran throughout the stalls. To the north was a car park. Further north a block of flats, Onslow Court was built in around 1934; it was also designed by J Stanley Beard and Clare.
By 1935 the Wyanbee Theatre circuit had been bought by Associated British Cinemas (ABC), a company founded in 1912 by John Maxwell. The Fulham Forum eventually came to be exclusively used as a cinema. At an unknown date, the decoration of the auditorium was modified, including covering up some of the auditorium murals and draping the ceiling dome in fabric. In the 1950s the building was rebranded for ABC; external FORUM signage on the external elevations and on the chimney stack were removed, and ABC signage was added. In 1958 the first-floor circular tea room was converted into a hairdressing salon. In the 1960s the organ was removed. In June 1974, the auditorium was subdivided to provide three screens, with one screen inserted into the circle and two in the stalls. In 1975, the former stage area and dressing rooms were removed and the space converted to a squash court, and a fourth screen was inserted into the fly tower above. In 1977, the circle level was subdivided into two screens.
In 1984 the cinema underwent a ‘complete’ refurbishment led by interior designer Tessa Kennedy (born 1938), a member of the Interior Design Association. Changes included the fitting of a new billboard canopy over the entrance and torchères added to each of the giant-order columns. The flagpoles were also replaced and new double doors were fitted within each entrance bay and on the Fulham Road elevation. By this time the illuminated urns which originally topped the circular entrance bay had been removed. The booking offices and kiosks were rebuilt. An upstairs bar was gutted and refurbished.
In 1994, a proposed scheme to restore the auditorium was set out including plans to remove the 1960s partitions to create a single screen within the circle area of the auditorium, and the removal of later wall coverings to determine to what extent the original 1930s decoration survived on the auditorium’s perimeter internal walls, as well as to uncover the large coffered dome. This scheme does not appear to have been undertaken. In around 1996 a screen was inserted into the area used as a squash court, creating the sixth screen. By the early C21 the cinema car park had been built over with a block of flats. In 2019 the cinema was taken over by Picturehouse Cinema at which point it underwent a refurbishment with Art-Deco influences as well as the repurposed or original features such as the use of original grilles within the first floor former tea room.
Details
Former combined cinema and variety theatre, opened in 1930. It was built to the designs of J Stanley Beard as part of J Stanley Beard and Clare, for Herbert A Yapp’s Wyanbee Theatres. It was taken over by ABC in 1935 and went on to be used exclusively as a cinema. Between 1970 and 1996 the auditoriums, stage area and fly tower were subdivided into six cinema screens. The building underwent refurbishment in the 1980s, led by Tessa Kennedy. In 2019, it came under the management of Picturehouse Cinemas and was refurbished.
MATERIALS: steel-framed structure with red Dorking facing bricks, embellished by cream and blue-faience tile and bronze panelling (later painted). There is also a painted black plinth, replacing the previous polished stone cladding. The large hipped steel-truss roof has been recovered in modern corrugated metal.
PLAN: a rectangular footprint with a round corner entrance to the east (at the junction of Drayton Gardens and Fulham Road) and a stair tower at the south-west corner with four levels of lobbies and bars between. Extending to the north is the former auditorium space which has canted walls at the upper levels at the north end where the former backstage area was located.
EXTERIOR: the building is in Classical style, influenced by Italian-Renaissance and Roman architecture with Art-Deco detailing, and consists of four floors, with an additional basement level, topped by a large hipped roof.
At the east corner is a tile-clad, curved four-storey entrance bay. The ground floor consists of several setback 1980s double doors with brass handles, separated by piers that support the first-floor balcony. Near the base of two of the piers are tiles which include raised lettering reading 'ARCHITECTS / J STANLEY BEARD & CLARE/ F F R I B A' and 'CONTRACTORS. /BOVIS, LIMTED./1930.'. Above the entrance is a curving billboard which has been replaced several times; behind which is the original first-floor balcony with metal railings. In front of the set-back upper three floors are four giant-order Corinthian columns with decorative capitals, as well as a pair of square pilasters. Attached to the columns are torchères added in the 1980s. Between the columns are windows, set within bronze panelling; above the second-floor windows are small pediments with shell decoration. Some of the glazing has been replaced; the original lead-pane amber and blue coloured glazing survives within the third floor as well as within the margin glazing of the second-floor windows. Above is a curving entablature topped by balustrading set between square piers; the piers were originally topped by urns which have been removed. The cornerpiece has a large stepped tiled parapet with blue incised scroll decoration.
The Fulham Road elevation, has seven bays, two tile-clad, projecting canted end bays and five set-back central bays. The canted bays each include a two-storey, round arched window with Vitruvian scroll keystones containing early multi-pane, metal frames. Below are recessed blue-tile aprons with laurel wreath decoration, above square windows with large metal grilles. The south-west bay also has a blocked ground-floor opening and a door to the basement. There are further narrow ground-floor windows on the corner returns. Between the end bays, the central five bays have cream tiling on the ground floor, brick upper floors and a basement level below delineated by a wall to the front comprising piers and panels of decorative ironwork. Two sets of ground floor doors at each end are accessed via steps with balustrades that sail over the basement level. Between the doors are three large ground floor windows which have been lowered to create larger picture windows. In front of the central three bays is a first floor, tile-clad Juliette balcony supported by console brackets, with a metal balustrade; earlier ornamental torch lighting attached to the balustrade has been removed. The first and second-floor windows retain the original metal-frame margin glazing bars. The three central windows are set within tall round arches topped by shell motifs and large keystones. The flanking windows are within brick plain reveals. There is a tile band above, with three square windows in plain brick reveals; the central window has been replaced by louvered shutters while the flanking windows retain their large diamond glazing bars. The parapet is tile-clad and a tall brick stack rises above at the south-west corner.
The brick-faced Cavaye Place elevation includes a row of fire exits at its south end. It has an irregular fenestration, with the main concentration of metal casement windows at the south end; the rest of the elevation is largely uninterupted brickwork which displays some modifications including the replacement of doors with windows, and some boarded-up openings. This elevation, which includes shallow recesses divided by brick pilasters at the north end, is partially obscured by an adjacent terrace.
At the south end of the Drayton Gardens elevation is another tile-clad, canted corner bay which includes a tall round-arch shallow recess and blocked opening below; both with large keystones. There is a blocked ground-floor entrance at the base of this bay. The rest of the elevation is brick with some tile details. The five-bay, three-storey elevation has a central ground floor former door, which has been replaced by a window. Above is a metal cantilevered canopy. Above the canopy, the elevation includes five recessed panels, with brick and tile surrounds, divided by brick pilasters with decorative tile capitals. At the north end of this elevation is a four-storey block flanked by two-storey blocks. The ground floor includes further entrances which provide access to the former backstage area; this includes a tall, two storey, flat-arch opening at the north end, originally the scenery entrance, which has been partially infilled and has a later door inserted. The windows at this end are multi-pane metal casements of various dates. There have also been some later brick patch repairs and infill additions.
There is a large hipped roof over the auditorium with metal fire escapes and a smaller hipped-roof lantern over part of the north end, where there has also been an additional storey added over part of the former fly tower. Other later additions to the roofscape include plant structures and a tall brick vent tower that has been added to the south-west corner of the building.
INTERIOR: the building's interior principally consists of six cinema screens located over three levels within the main auditorium and former stage area. These screens were added piecemeal between the 1970s and 1990s, with various phases of refurbishment; the current appearance of the screens dates to 2019. Screens 3 and 6 have been inserted into the north end of the building, resulting in the partial infilling of the fly tower, and the loss of stage area and dressing rooms below. The is little visable evidence for the auditorium’s 1930s decoration. The lower part of at least one fluted Corinthian pilaster is visible at first-floor level at the top of the fire escape in the north-west corner of the building. Also at this end, at the ground floor, is a small section of a plaster band with scroll-detailing. Other visible surviving elements of the 1930s auditorium include the remains of the gilded band of the proscenium arch within screen 3 at the first floor. Within a modern projector room to the rear of screens 4 and 5 on the ground-floor level, a section of the original ceiling under the circle balcony, including plaster decoration and beams, is also visible. It is unclear to what extent other parts of the 1930s auditorium decoration that lined the walls or the proscenium arch have survived behind the later wall coverings and inserted ceilings.
The 1930s layout of the circular lobby survives along with the main stairwell but the lobby’s current decorative scheme is largely the result of the 2019 refurbishment, including the creation of an adjacent refreshment counter within the south-east corner of the former auditorium. However, there is some decoration at the top of the pilasters which divides the entrance door bays, and a Greek-key cornice which are likely to be of the 1930s. In the middle of the bottom set of steps of the principal staircase, and on the first-floor landing, are decorative railings which may be part of the original decorative scheme. There are brass handrails throughout the building, some of which may be original. Two further staircases on the south-west corner of the building are original, one connected to all levels and one running from the third to the ground floor; these have simple metal handrails.
The bars, lounges, projection room and staff rooms were located on the south side of the building. These areas have undergone various phases of refurbishment, including the removal of internal subdivisions; their current decoration appears to mainly relate to the 2019 refurbishment. The bar at the centre of the first floor retains a panel with a Guilloche surround which appears to be original. There are also four alcoves in the north wall of a curving corridor, which are part of the original layout, with later decoration. Also, at this level is the circular former tea lounge which includes a section of the metal grille, formerly from the auditorium, which has been reused at the top of a modern bar back.
The building's original internal three-panel doors have largely been replaced; however, a small number have been retained, principally located in staff, backstage areas and service stairwells There are several wood veneer doors with handles that match those of the 1980s front doors that are likely contemporary with that phase of refurbishment. Other doors are more recent replacements.
To the north side of the building are narrow fire escape staircases. At the north-east corner of the building are some of the former dressing rooms and service areas which have been used subsequently as accommodation and retain some original three-panel doors and parquet flooring; this area is currently not in use.
On the south side of the building, the basement level includes the former boiler rooms and service chambers which largely conform with the original layout. This area retains original three-panel doors and elements of former machinery and plant, relating to the early running of the theatre and cinema.
The roof has a substantial steel-truss structure, with a network of walkways between the trusses. It is unclear if the dome which topped the auditorium still survives.
