Bush Theatre (ii)

The Bush Theatre reopened on 10 October 2011 in a new home created within the old Shepherd's Bush library building on Uxbridge Road. The library, built in English Renaissance style in 1895 by Maurice Bingham Adams, was a gift to Hammersmith Council from the philanthropist Passmore Edwards to benefit the local community. The red brick building has asymmetrical bays under a symmetrical gabled roofline with slate hipped roof and dormer windows. It fell into disuse in 2008 when a new library was built as part of the Westfield development. The Bush Theatre was given a 125-year lease at a peppercorn rent. Architect Haworth Tompkins created a new 150 seat auditorium in a 1950s extension and converted former reading rooms and administrative offices into front and back of house spaces. Walls were stripped back to expose a variety of brick work. Natural light was preserved by shuttering, rather than permanently blacking out the windows of the auditorium. A limited budget meant that the conversion emphasised recycling when transforming the space. Much of the interior was recycled or home made from materials found on site. Old library book shelves were re-used for shelving in the bar area and Victorian doors found in the basement used to construct the bar itself. Artist and colour specialist, Antoni Malinowski, painted walls and ceilings within the auditorium and the front of house spaces. Rehearsal room space and a script library were also created. Construction of the second phase began in April 2016 and the theatre reopened in March 2017. The auditorium itself is little changed although greater flexibility was introduced by new seating and capacity increased to 200. A workshop and two dressing rooms were added and front of house spaces improved. A new studio space seating between 50 and 70 was created, with wall panels that open to bring natural light into the room for daytime workshops. A crossover corridor links the main theatre, studio, dressing rooms, workshop and stage management office. The new rehearsal room, created on the second floor, is a continuous attic room sitting underneath the pitched roof and punctuated by jutting dormers. A lift provides disabled access across the building’s three floors for the first time. Artistic Director Madani Younis’s vision of a porous building and a theatre that reflects and invites in the world around it, has been met by the design of the new entrance. A continuous single-storey canopy along the western façade now forms the entrance to the theatre and opens out onto a narrow terrace strip and directly onto Uxbridge Road. Trimmed with black painted corrugated metal along its roof and starkly encased in black, glazed ceramic brickwork at its far end, the canopy is enclosed by a continuous series of glass bi-fold doors that can be fully opened allowing patrons access to the Studio and to spill out on to cafe seating within the new landscaped terrace beyond. The design establishes a distinct identity for the theatre and connects the street more directly to the reconfigured interior spaces.