London, United Kingdom
Listed as one of the world’s most important theatres, Haworth Tompkins’ Theatre Royal Drury Lane’s extensive restoration project together with Alexander Waterworth Interiors is a result of seven years of painstaking research, analysis, design, and craftsmanship to bring London’s grandest venue gloriously back to life.
Drury Lane encapsulates the history of British theatre, Benjamin Dean Wyatt’s 1812 building being only the latest incarnation of a continuous theatrical presence on the site since 1663.
Theatre Royal Drury Lane Restoration project has recently been awarded a 2022 International Architecture Award by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.
“Drury Lane is the history of British theatre in one building, and much of our task has been to protect and restore its astonishing original qualities,” explains project director Steve Tompkins.
“But it is also a public venue operating into the 21st century, and so an equally important task has been to make sure the theatre as a whole continues to thrive in a world that is culturally, technically, and commercially transformed.”
A central part of the project vision was to reveal and restore Wyatt’s public spaces–the Foyer, the Rotunda, the Wyatt Staircase, and the Grand Saloon–arguably the most impressive sequence of Georgian public interior spaces in existence.
Another part of the vision was to improve and democratize access to the theatre–by remodeling the previously segregated circulation routes so that all visitors pass through these spaces and by adding lift access to all tiers of the auditorium.
The original form of the foyer, with its sequence of spaces, has been restored by the removal of later accretions, releasing the imposing Doric Columns that frame loggias at each end, and by uncovering and restoring the original decorative scheme of stone coursing with restrained Greek Key cornicing.
The original stone floor in the Rotunda and Wyatt Stair has been retained and restored and new torchieres, have been added to replicate the original lighting of these spaces.
New connections to the auditorium, have been added so that all levels of the auditorium can be accessed from the Rotunda and Wyatt Stair.
The architects collaborated with interior designers AWI and with BDP lighting on new bars, retail space, furniture, and lighting that enable the theatre to welcome visitors throughout the day and evening.
Andrew Lloyd Webber has personally commissioned new paintings and “grisaille” murals for the foyers to complement a new hang of historic paintings, drawings, and posters.
Wyatt’s multi-tiered, enveloping auditorium was replaced entirely in the 1920s when a more disengaged, cinematic style of seating arrangement was fashionable.
A crucial aspect of the project has been to bring the audience into a closer and more direct relationship with the stage, aspiring to the legendary intimacy of LW Theatre’s other great venue, Frank Matcham’s London Palladium.
Haworth Tompkins worked alongside Charcoal blue, greatly improving the sightlines and subtly tightening the room geometry to embrace the stage more closely.
The redecorated auditorium has been fully re-raked, re-seated, and technically refitted so that for the first time it will be possible to arrange the theatre in unconventional formats for specific productions.
With a major technical renewal of the stage and stagehouse and full refurbishment of the dressing rooms, the entire building has been restored and upgraded.
This magnificent historic theatre has entered yet another incarnation, equipped for the next generations of theatre-making.
Project: Theatre Royal Drury Lane Restoration
Architects: Haworth Tompkins
Original Architects: Benjamin Dean Wyatt (1812)
Project Manager: Avison Young
Interior Designers: Alexander Waterworth Interiors, AWI
Lighting Consultant: BDP
Services Engineer: Skelly & Couch
Structural Engineer: Conisbee
General Contractor: GTCM Contractors, Inc.
Client: LW Theatres
Photographers: Philip Vile
