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PROJECT REPORT: CULTURAL, CIVIC & FAITH BUILDINGS
PERFOMANCE ENHANCEMENT
The original, outdated auditorium was stripped out and replaced with a new interior with more capacity but a more intimate feel; an adjacent ‘studio’ theatre is also a vast improvement on the former offering
investment in the town centre of Hertford,” say the architects, forming part of the council’s “wider urban strategy to open up the riverside to the public.” The project has therefore been planned to include routes through for pedestrians, which further enhances its position as a social and community hub, not a cultural ‘ivory tower.’ The new internal programme provides a range of flexible event spaces plus three cinema screens, a new ‘studio’ auditorium for smaller live acts and performances, and an expanded main auditorium suited for larger productions, with an added balcony level. The building’s new foyer plus riverside cafe-bar helps connect the building with the river, and the old theatre auditorium with the new additions.
Brief & design approach The commercial drivers largely centred around increasing the capacity of both cinema and theatre provision, and
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increasing the quality of what Hertford could stage as a ‘receiving house’ and provide first-run cinema releases. The existing 1970s auditorium had “very much a civic hall feel,” with around 400 retractable seats, and “lacked any sense of grandeur,” says Bogle. It also had a very small adjoining ‘black box’ studio. The only real connection to the river in the built form was a hireable function room “which hung over the river,” says Bogle, that wasn’t maximising the opportunity of the site. The building had seen a light refurbishment in 2010, however this was focused on the front of house and some technical upgrades to accommodate ‘second release cinema.’ Already a venue punching above its weight before the interventions by Bennetts Associates, the expanded capacity – particularly that of the theatre – increases the venue’s reach on the national touring circuit, plus giving the potential to generate much more of its own work.
ADF JULY/AUGUST 2024
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