The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the South Bank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats. The South Bank Centre is a complex of arts buildings located on the south bank of the River Thames beside the Hungerford Bridge. ... This article is about the British city. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... Henry Purcell Henry Purcell (IPA: [1][2]; September 10, 1659–November 21, 1695), a Baroque composer, is generally considered to be one of Englands greatest composers — indeed, he has often been called Englands finest native composer. ...

The Purcell Room hosts a wide range of chamber music, jazz, mime and poetry recitals. Access is via the same foyer as for the Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH), most easily reached from the upper riverside terrace of the Royal Festival Hall. Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. ... Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the early 1920s in New Orleans, rooted in Western music technique and theory, and is marked by the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. ... Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet Standard for the format of e-mail. ... Poetry (from Ancient Greek: (poiéo/poió) = I create) is traditionally a written art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. ... The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, which hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. ... The Royal Festival Hall is a concert, dance and talks venue within the South Bank Centre in London. ...

In the context of the South Bank Centre it is the smallest of a set of three venues, the other two being the Royal Festival Hall, a large symphony hall, and the QEH, which is used for orchestral, chamber and contemporary amplified music. The South Bank Centre is a complex of arts buildings located on the south bank of the River Thames beside the Hungerford Bridge. ... The Royal Festival Hall is a concert, dance and talks venue within the South Bank Centre in London. ...

The Purcell Room was built at the same time as the QEH, with which it shares a common foyer building and architectural features as an example of Brutalist architecture. The focus of the building is its interior space and it makes few concessions to external decoration. From outside, even its position within the South Bank Centre is not easy to discern. Brutalism is an architectural style that spawned from the modernist architectural movement and which flourished from the 1950s to the 1970s. ...

External links

• Royal Festival Hall website (covers Purcell Room also for bookings)
• LondonDance website (Dance listings and venues)
• The Stage website (Listings information)
• South Bank Centre website (Governance, management and future plans)
• Explore-london.co.uk website (Photographs, including parts of Purcell Room building)

Design

Like the QEH, the Purcell Room (PR) exterior needs some knowledge to understand and appreciate. The PR stands between the QEH and Hayward Gallery, aligned parallel to Waterloo Bridge, with the stage at the north-west end. Hayward Gallery, London The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the South Bank Centre, situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. ... View of the old Waterloo Bridge from Whitehall stairs, John Constable, 18 June 1817 Waterloo Bridge. ...

The PR auditorium is cantilevered out over the centre access road and its rear facade faces the entrance to the Hayward Gallery. The auditorium is reported to be fitted with a Helmholtz resonator to allow its acoustic properties to be modified. The access link from the foyer (shared with the QEH) is through a massive sculpted concrete casing, visible from outside the entrance to the Hayward, near the overhead bridge. Hayward Gallery, London The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the South Bank Centre, situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, in central London, England. ... A brass, spherical Helmholtz resonator based on his original design, from around 1890-1900. ...

The treatment of the ventilation services is an early example of the external treatment of such equipment. This idea later reached a peak in the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris and Lloyd's building, London in the 1970's and 80's respectively. The Pompidou Centres famous external skeleton of service pipes. ... One of the stainless steel clad stair cases, and ducts on the outside of the Lloyds building Lloyds Building, City of London Lloyd’s Building (with the blue cranes), London The Lloyds building is the headquarters of the insurance institution Lloyds of London, located in the...

The roof of the PR building, which is supported independently of the auditorium, holds the plant room for both the QEH and PR. The plant room's three massive vents are housed high above the walkway near the entrance to the Hayward and also towards the Waterloo Bridge side of the north corner of the roof. Massive concrete ducts lead from the plant room: vertically to the foyer building below via the mysterious concrete tower, and horizontally to the QEH auditorium.

An artists' foyer is between the PR and QEH auditoriums at ground level.

Future

As of 2005, the long term future of the Purcell Room is unclear in the context of the desire of the Arts Council England to see two 1,100 seat auditoriums on the site of the QEH and Purcell Room, one for classical music and one for contemporary amplfied music, based on the Arts Council's and South Bank Centre's submissions to London Borough of Lambeth Unitary Development Plan. Arts Council England was formed in 1994 when the Arts Council of Great Britain was divided into three separate bodies for England, Scotland and Wales. ...