The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery and associated terraced walkways and stairs

Summary

Arts complex built between 1963 and 1968 to designs by the Special Works Group of the London County Council/Greater London Council Architect's Department (chief architect (Sir) Hubert Bennett). It comprises the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room for the performance of music and the Hayward Gallery, which was jointly designed with and funded by the Arts Council.

Reasons for Designation

The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery and associated terraces, walkways and stairs are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a creative response to a challenging site; contrasting with the bulk of the Royal Festival Hall, the building’s functions are articulated in bold geometric formations, clustered to sculptural effect with a correspondingly dramatic silhouette;
* for its use of exposed concrete in which the building’s monumental scale is countered by the fine texture and tactility of its surface finishes, executed with exemplary technical skill;
* for the spatial interest, sophisticated juxtaposition of materials, and high quality finishes of the principal interior spaces, including the concert halls and foyer, and galleries, stairs and ramped circulation through the Hayward Gallery;
* as a major public building representing one of the most complete and memorable realisations of Brutalism in England.

Historic interest:
* as a nationally significant arts complex by the LCC Architect’s Department, an institution responsible for a large and distinguished body of public architecture in post-war England;
* the Hayward Gallery (HG) was the first major building project undertaken in conjunction with the Arts Council, it is a key example of a purpose-built gallery for temporary and touring exhibitions, and one of the first in England to experiment with modern styling and planning;
* the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room are important as acoustically successful, purpose-built post-war concert halls, designed to host the performance of music by smaller ensembles in a sympathetic, aesthetically modern environment.

Group value:
* with the Royal Festival Hall (Grade I) and the National Theatre (Grade II*), which altogether form an important, prestigious post-war arts complex on the South Bank of the Thames.

History

The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery form one element in the series of major arts venues built on London’s South Bank after the Second World War, beginning with the Royal Festival Hall (listed Grade I, NHLE: 1249756) which opened in May 1951 for the Festival of Britain and was designed by the Architects Dept of the London County Council (LCC) who owned the South Bank site. It occupies a tight site overlooking the Thames, between Waterloo Bridge (Grade II*) and the British Film Institute (east), the Royal Festival Hall (Grade I, west) and Belvedere Road (south).

When Leslie Martin succeeded as chief architect to the LCC in 1953, he established a Special Works Group under Norman Engleback to develop designs for subsequent phases of the South Bank’s development. The brief for the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery grew from the need for a smaller concert hall, which had not been provided within the Royal Festival Hall, and the requirement for a London gallery suited specifically to hosting touring exhibitions. Proposals began to be sketched out from 1955. The QEH was designed for 1,106 seats, and acoustically for small classical ensembles; a recital hall, subsequently named the Purcell Room, was added to the brief in 1960 and designed for 372 seats. The planning of the gallery was undertaken jointly with the Executive Committee of the Arts Council who also used it for the display of works from their collection. The design team included John Attenborough, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, John Roberts, WJ Sutherland, Dennis Crompton and J W Szymaniak (Herron, Chalk and Crompton went on, as part of the Archigram group, to be recognised as among the most original architectural thinkers of the 1960s). The scheme was approved in 1961 and built from 1963 under Engleback’s successor E J Blyth, who is credited for the high standards of workmanship achieved on the site. Peter Dunican of Ove Arup and Partners was the structural engineer and Higgs and Hill were the main contractors. The Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room opened in March 1967, and the Hayward Gallery (named after and opened by Sir Isaac Hayward, last Leader of the LCC) in July 1968.

The Special Works Group had a surprisingly free hand to evolve its own ideas for the design of this prestigious and high-profile project. Engleback and others visited contemporary concert halls round Europe to study acoustics and sound insulation; the acoustical consultants for the executed halls were Hope Bagenal and Hugh Creighton, leading specialists in their field. Specific planning challenges included the difference in levels between the riverside in front and Waterloo Bridge on the east side, as well as a desire neither to repeat the large mass of the RFH (and intended National Theatre), nor to interrupt views downstream from the RFH’s side terrace. Because of the site’s topography, and the roof terraces of the RFH, the building would be visible from above and below, as well as from all sides. Engleback’s team adopted an inside-out approach so that the volumes, layout and services of the three venues producing a fragmented composition of clustered forms. In order to address concerns about external noise disturbing the quiet of the gallery and performance spaces the building needed mass, specifically 15 inches of concrete was advised, and attenuated ducting for the air conditioning system. The ducting too is placed within formal components, their treatment given the same careful attention as part of a common vocabulary of detail and significantly adding to the sculptural qualities of the complex’s silhouette.

The principal parts are linked and encircled at the entrance level by raised terraces or walkways, which also connect the buildings to the riverfront entrance of the RFH, and these are an example of the contemporary interest in vertical segregation of pedestrians from traffic, although the walkways are in isolation of lesser interest than the main structures of the concert halls and gallery. The building contrasts strikingly with the formal, frontal quality of the Portland stone-clad RFH. Its expressed structure, tough, dark concrete and bold monumentality identify it as a mature work of the ‘New Brutalism’, an internationally significant architectural movement of which Britain was at the forefront during the early post-war years.

As well as exhibitions, the exterior of the gallery, which was always intended for the display of sculpture, has provided a platform for temporary exhibits and performance art. The sculpture ‘Zemran’, by William Pye (Grade II), was donated to the Greater London Council and erected permanently outside the foyer of the QEH and Purcell Room in 1972. Since the mid-1970s the open space beneath the Queen Elizabeth Hall, known as the undercroft, has been adopted by skateboarders, later joined by BMX bikers and parkour athletes. Its walls and piers have acquired layers of graffiti, all representing the cultural diversity of the South Bank and the evolution of the use of its public spaces over time but this is not part of the reason for designation.

In 2002-2003 the entrance to the Hayward Gallery was redesigned by Haworth Tompkins to provide a larger foyer, shop, café and educational facilities. The building as a whole underwent a major refurbishment in 2015-2018, when the interiors of the gallery, auditoria and foyer was renovated and restored, the plant replaced, and services updated. Key changes to public-facing areas are, where relevant, described in the Details, below.

Details

MATERIALS: reinforced concrete structure, faced with a mixture of in-situ concrete, whose surface is produced by the markings of the 'rip-sawn' boards used to cast the concrete, and pre-cast concrete panels with an aggregate finish of Cornish granite chips. Internally, piers, walls and stairs are of exposed in-situ shuttered concrete with board markings. The QEH and Purcell Room auditoria have walls lined in hardwood, probably American ash, and floors of Afromosia. The foyer floor and walls are of white Macedonian marble. The galleries have Italian terrazzo flooring, renewed 2015-2018. The walkway balustrades are cast concrete with rough aggregate finish and heavy pre-cast panels with rounded tops. The mushroom-headed piers and the undersides and edges of the walkways, and the flanks of the stairs are also of in-situ board-marked concrete.

PLAN: The northern half of the complex comprises the QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL and at right angles to it to the rear (south), the smaller PURCELL ROOM, served by a shared pincer-shaped foyer facing the river and Royal Festival Hall, with service rooms surrounding and below the auditoria. To the rear (south) at street level are the original artists’ entrance, facilities and services. The HAYWARD GALLERY forms the southern half of the complex and is laid out on two principal levels above the ground floor which contains the entrance for delivery and storage of works of art. Two spiral stairs and service core form a north/south spine of the principal floors, with five exhibition galleries, and service rooms set either side of it. The three lower galleries are on a split-level, linked by an internal ramp and connected across the stair core. The upper two galleries are top-lit and give access to external sculpture terraces. Although the halls and gallery are separate entities, they are linked by a bridge between the roof terrace of the QEH and the upper floor of the Hayward. At entrance level they are connected and encircled by terraces and walkways which also link them to Waterloo Bridge at the higher level on the east side. Stairs connect these walkways to street and riverside levels. The underside of the walkways and their supporting columns creates a covered, open area around and below the QEH known as the undercroft.

EXTERIORS: the complex has an articulated, sculptural profile, expressing the internal planning of the venues. It is made up of stacked and interlocking blocks, slabs and towers, some with splayed soffits, terraced roofs and cantilevered balconies. Shafts for ventilation provide vertical accents and below the terraces and walkways are mushroom-headed octagonal concrete columns, which create the undercroft below and around the QEH. A series of staircases between street level and the entrance levels are expressed as tight, self-contained sculptural elements. The formal geometric language is accentuated throughout by the contrasting concrete finishes.

QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL and PURCELL ROOM. The west entrance lobby is beneath a two-storey element with steep mono-pitch roof and deep board-marked fascia bearing the names of both halls. It retains six pairs of original glazed entrance doors in 'stucco' finish cast aluminium frames of six panels with integral handles. On the entrance’s north side a projection (originally for a bar) contains windows that date from the refurbishment of 2015-2018. Above this a staircase links to the roof terrace above the main foyer. The foyer itself is lit on both sides by large aluminium window units with radiused corners, and on the western elevation by a clerestory of similar form. At the lower level is the undercroft where to the rear the new artists’ entrance winds dramatically through sheer walls of board-marked concrete within a top-lit foyer. The old entrance bears the original signage.

HAYWARD GALLERY. The entrance was altered in 2002-2003 to the designs of Haworth Tompkins, providing a large, glazed space with a steel frame and surmounted with the letters of 'Hayward Gallery'. The lower exhibition galleries are blind but the upper galleries are partly lit by large horizontal slot-like openings with heavy concrete frames to east and west. Above, they are top lit by distinctive grids of skylights in the form of glazed pyramids (renewed 2015-2018). The sculpture courts are cantilevered out from the building to north and west with outward-splayed parapets.

INTERIORS: internally, the special interest resides primarily in the public spaces, that is, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, their shared foyer and public circulation areas serving them, and in the Hayward Gallery, and circulation within it, including access to the upper-level sculpture courts.

QUEEN ELIZABETH HALL and PURCELL ROOM. The foyer is set around structural octagonal columns with mushroom heads. Broad concrete ceiling beams radiating from each pier form triangular voids in which slatted timber light units are fitted (2015-2018, replacing similar original white boarded light installations). The Queen Elizabeth Hall’s original character remains little altered, despite the addition of a stage, which has been extended. The Hall’s proportions were devised to increase reverberation times and the walls are lined in timber Helmholtz resonators for flexibility in the lower frequencies, making the space suitable for a greater range of music. The auditorium is raked, without galleries, and has bespoke seating. To the left is a single box and to the right is a pair, stacked above each other, all in exposed board-marked concrete with timber side panels. To the rear the projection box is flanked by spiral service stairs with open concrete treads and steel balustrades. The modelling of the resonators, panelling and boxes give the simple volume spatial interest, as do exposed services such as ceiling air vents. The Purcell Room, is simpler but similar in style and is also lined in timber. Lobbies to the auditoria are lined in vertical slatted hardwood, flush timber panelling, clay tile and wood-block flooring and a quantity of original joinery.

HAYWARD GALLERY: Internal finishes are generally of in-situ concrete, some now painted, and with chamfered edges around openings. The ceilings are of 'egg-crate' construction. At lower level provision for lighting is largely by artificial light with baffles in the ceilings. The ceiling height of the top-floor galleries has been raised and the galleries are lit naturally from rooflights. Galleries two and three are a split-level, double-height space connected via ramp with a concrete and glass balustrade with polished brass rail. The expressive, central spiral stairs, in board-marked concrete, have a radiused concrete balustrade and terrazzo treads. Apart from gallery one, which has a maple floor, floors are of terrazzo, which extends to the external balconies. Principal internal doorways have chamfered concrete frames and board-marked linings.

The TERRACED WALKWAYS have concrete paving and are pierced at intervals by spiral-like stairs (of design matching those inside the Hayward Gallery) with radiused, solid concrete balustrades. The balustrades of the walkways generally consist of heavy pre-cast panels with rounded tops.

Sources

Books and journals
Harwood, E, Space, Hope and Brutalism, English Architecture 1945-79, (2015), pp. 485-493
Banham, Reyner, The Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment, (1969)
Beanfield, Christopher, Meades, Jonathan, Concept Concrete, (2016)
Cherry, B, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England, (2002), pp. 345-355
Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios, , Respecting Brutalism: The Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall at 50, (2018)
Art Gallery in Architects' Journal, Vol. 148, (10 July 1968), pp. 55-64
Building Revisited: Hayward Art Gallery in Architects' Journal, Vol. 153, (3 February 1968), pp. 243-254
Jencks, C, Adhocism on the South Bank in Architectural Review, Vol. 144, (July 1968), pp. 276-277
Concert Halls in Architects' Journal, Vol. 145, (26 April 1967), pp. 999-1018
New Musical Boxes in Architects' Journal, Vol. 145, (1 February 1967), pp. 276-277
Engleback, N, South Bank Arts Centre in Arup Journal, Vol. 1, (July 1967), pp. 20-31
Moro, P, Queen Elizabeth Hall: an appraisal in RIBA Journal, Vol. 75, (June 1968), pp. 251-257
South Bank Arts Centre in Architectural Review, Vol. 144, (July 1968), pp. 14-26
South Bank Arts Centre, London in Architectural Design, Vol. 37, (March 1967), pp. 120-123
The New Concert Halls of London's South Bank Centre in Concrete Quarterly, Vol. 72, (January-March 1967), pp. 2-8
Chalk, W, Architecture as a Consumer Product in Arena: The Architecture Association Journal, Vol. 81, (March 1966), pp. 228-230
Sadler, S, Archigram, Architecture without Architecture, (2005), pp.24-32

Other
Harwood, Elain. 'Reviving a great sector of London to the benefit of the community': the London County Council's rebuilding of the South Bank as a cultural quarter, 1945-76. PhD Bristol, 2009

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