Southwark Theatre D i s t r i c t : An Off-Broadway

01 Contents 03 An Off-Broadway for London 05 Union: Southwark’s Theatre District 06 for Hypothetical Logo Development 08 Map 10 Rise of the Creative District 14 Case Study: Zona Tortona London 16 Case Studies 18 In Search of Southwark 28 10 Things to do in Southwark 30 These Wooden Os 36 A Workshop not a Shopfront 40 Case Studies 42 The Creative District Profiler 43 North Southwark Creative Districts urban research unit 46 About Futurecity An Off-Broadway for London A borough with a history of cultural freedom, Southwark can take centre stage in London with live performance as its driving force.

In this decade, over 50 per cent of creating urban places of quality and people around the world will live in originality where people and businesses urban environments. For the new economic can co-exist. The challenge for politicians, giants this means cities turned into places of planners and developers is to build authentic production and manufacturing. However in the creative districts that are rooted in the West, the loss of mass industrial manufacturing “local”, reflecting on an area’s history and production offers another industry: “ideas” without defaulting to a heritage approach and the opportunity to turn our major cities into to placemaking. the locus of creative and cultural innovation. Building modern creative places is about Taking a strategic approach to placemaking risk and experiment, seizing the moment; in that focuses on the cultural and knowledge Southwark there is an opportunity to build on economies can therefore help provide an the unique energy of the arts as a catalyst for overall sense of purpose and creative vision change and regeneration. A “city of villages”, for the regeneration of our former industrial London’s enduring ability to reinvent itself and brownfield areas. London is not alone: echoes the movement of our iconic tidal river. major cities across the world are developing For the last 200 years the southern riverbank these strategies as they attempt to attract the has been inaccessible to the public, ring- investors, businesses and people needed to fenced by private ownership; it was only in develop a competitive ideas economy. Already the mid 1950s and the Festival of Britain that creative districts such as Covent Garden, the connectedness of the river itself began to Southbank and Shoreditch/Tech City are be reflected on its banks. In 2012 Southwark internationally recognised as urban successes is poised to take a leadership role in a new that have attracted people and businesses London – a city built on its international to London. identity, trade, people, creativity and ideas However, if London is to keep its hard-won – that a newly joined up river is once again title of “global cultural city” it must move beginning to represent. The Southbank – forward, encouraging its creative industries by of which Southwark shares ownership investing in cultural infrastructure, providing and vision with Lewisham and Greenwich funding for research and education, and to the East, Lambeth and Wandsworth to

02 futurecity futurecity 03 We must build local ownership of the big idea; : Southwark has a critical mass of creative UNION people and businesses, homegrown audiences and active community participation SOuthwark’s t h e at r e d i s t r i c t

the West – is no longer a place but an idea and creative-district concept built around theatre Contemporary Southwark is home to some of expand Southwark’s wider economy by attracting bigger a journey. Beginning at Tower Bridge, it is now can draw in businesses working in prop making, London’s finest independent theatres: the Globe, audiences; such a move would be particularly beneficial possible to walk an entire stretch of the Thames fabrication, scenery design, fashion and textiles, Young Vic, Unicorn Theatre, Southwark Playhouse, Union for the borough’s night-time economy. to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station arts and craft, design and social media, as well Theatre and The Miller are all located in Southwark, In his concept note of 1994, Resourcing the Artist, through increasingly dynamic and culturally as an extended “theatre family” that includes with the National Theatre and the Old Vic close by on its Richard Lee, director of the Jerwood Space, points out enticing new districts. the food and beverage industry. It is the idea Lambeth boundary. These theatres are supported by over that the invisibility of artistic “work”, particularly in As Southwark’s south bank redevelops, of a new theatre district for Southwark that 50 local private businesses, trading in costumes, props, set theatre, contributes to a general perception of the arts becoming home to a series of new residential resonates. However, it will need supporters and lighting design, theatre architecture, and education, as lacking economic value. The visible end product, the towers and cultural institutions, attention will and drivers if it is to succeed; to quote Sara sets and lighting design. These theatres are supported production itself, is a social event for audience and the inevitably move inwards to other Southwark Bernhadt, “The theatre is the involuntary reflex by over 50 local private businesses, trading in costumes, wider industry alike; the labour that goes into making it neighborhoods. Bermondsey High Street, of the ideas of the crowd.” The implication is props, set and lighting design, theatre architecture, and is largely hidden, dispersed across a range of halls, rooms Blackfriars Road, Waterloo, Elephant & Castle, that we must build local ownership of the big education, sets and lighting design, as well as some of and studios – both public and private – across the city. Peckham and Camberwell are all positioned idea; Southwark has a critical mass of creative the UK’s best theatre companies, and institutions such as Whilst this has shifted significantly for the visual to benefit from the knowledge and creative people and businesses, homegrown audiences the Jerwood Space, National Theatre Studio, and English arts and design in the following decades, the business of sectors, with their theatres, art schools, and active community participation. Touring Theatre. That this clustering of business, visible theatre remains largely imperceptible to a wider public world-class museums and clusters of creative Futurecity believe the theatre district and invisible, should have grown up in Southwark is not audience. Initiatives such as the Battersea Arts Centre’s industries and businesses. concept will provide a catalyst for the coincidental: creative businesses, as with most traditional open scratch events, the early emergence of theatre Was it Southwark that contributed to the reinvigoration of Southwarks neighbourhoods, trades, establish themselves close to their customers and hubs such as Bristol’s Residence, Marylebone’s Theatre sentiment behind the London cabby’s eternal but a theatre district cannot be imposed. Instead suppliers. Delicatessen and Stoke Newington’s International cry of, “Not south of the river at this time of we can put in place the basic elements, kick Theatre has a distinguished heritage in Southwark. Airport, and immersive theatre companies such as Shunt, night,” so familiar to residents south of the start the scheme with the support of the cultural There are its medieval galleried inns: from one of these, Punchdrunk and Coney, combine to bring theatre and city? Historically outside of the jurisdiction community and encourage take-up of the idea the Tabard, Chaucer’s travellers in the Canterbury Tales its workings closer to audiences. However, there are of the City of London, Southwark was a by the stakeholders outlined in this document. depart; in another, The George Inn on Bermondsey few events in theatre that mirror the Open Studio-style place of relative cultural freedom; successive Marketing, branding and PR is necessary but it Street, contemporary drinkers can continue to gather. projects that have brought the work of visual artists out in centuries saw north Londoners take a boat will inevitably need political and private sector There is also the major proliferation of theatres on the to the open. trip south to the Rose Theatre, to places of partnerships and sponsorship to succeed. southern river bank of the Thames that occurred in the How Union might best serve the theatre industry of intrigue, liaison, ribaldry and entertainment. late 1500s: Shakespeare’s Globe, the Rose, Newington Southwark – as well as local businesses such as restaurants If “Southwarkness” can be described as a love Mark Davy Butts, Blackfriars Playhouse and the Hope (built on the and bars, and theatre practitioners beyond the borough’s of theatre, performance and live action then Founder and Director of Futurecity site of the Beargarden, Southwark’s infamous bear-baiting boundaries – is very much open to debate. The following the borough can be proud to have embraced ring) combined to establish a thriving performance pages explore various models that might contribute to change without losing its cultural heritage. community in the area. This was echoed in the 19th that conversation and propose what the Union brand Modern theatres such as the Young Vic and the century by the establishment of Victorian music halls: the might look and feel like, and how it might be applied. As Southwark Playhouse, supported by the engine Raglan on Union Street, Britannia on Blackfriars Road a starting point, Futurecity has discussed Union with a rooms of the Jerwood Space and National and Winchester on Southwark Bridge Road in north series of companies, institutions and practitioners; their Theatre Studios, have sustained the production Southwark alone. thoughts and feedback forms part of the Union proposal. of independent, innovative theatre; new live, Union responds to this significant clustering of theatre At the same time we explore what makes Southwark a immersive productions by experimental in Southwark, drawing on examples such as the London unique place and expand on the multiplicity of ways in companies such as Shunt and Punchdrunk have Design Festival (and corresponding Brompton, Shoreditch, which Southwark ‘performs’ on its streets for residents found new spaces and audiences. Even the Tate London Fields and Clerkenwell Design Districts) and and visitors alike. Modern has got in on the act with the opening Milan’s Zona Tortona to propose a brand for a new theatre of its ‘‘Tank Galleries”, offering a programme district for London. Taking its identity from the prologue of experimental live arts events. of Shakespeare’s Henry V, the “wooden O”, Union’s concept As our research shows, there is no doubting is to draw together the energy of the borough’s theatre the importance of the existing theatre offer practitioners and businesses to further establish Southwark to the local economy. By joining the dots a as a major cultural quarter. In doing so it will support and

04 futurecity futurecity 05 Hypothetical Logo Development

Futurecity has developed a Logo in context hypothetical logo for Union in The logo’s robust design means that it reproduces order to demonstrate how the concept clearly in even the most utilitarian of situations. might work in practice: it is not proposed as a finalised entity. The name Union was selected for its geographical resonance: the Jerwood Space and The Union Theatre are both located on Union Street, which itself is opposite The Cut and its wealth of theatrical offers. It also encapsulates the aim of the project: to unify and make visible Southwark’s theatre ecology. The hexagon shape hints at both the theatrical “empty space” of a cube and the multifaceted external architecture of theatres such as the Globe. The logo’s typography uses eclectic Victorian typefaces associated with vintage theatre posters and combines them with classic modernist typefaces to create a unique union of the historic and contemporary. Logo rotations and colour scheme The “O” is highlighted in reference to The logo is designed to be used at any one of four different angles Shakespeare’s prologue to Henry V, of rotation, and in any one of the indentity’s three colours. where he refers to the interior space of the theatre as “this wooden O”. The clean, modern vertical strapline marks would be the far vertical edge of the cube and they hint at the urban landscape line of Southwark. It also gives the logo another key feature, its positioning allowing the logo to be used at any one of four different angles of rotation. This allows for varying degrees of emphasis on either Union or the strapline. This feature also reinforces the logo’s reference to Southwark’s many circular, flexible theatrical spaces.

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10 Academy Costumes RO CAMBERWELL 21 Box Clever 32 28Vayu Naidu Company Step-partnership.co.uk 53 Union Theatre Academytextiles.com Boxclevertheatre.com AD Vayunaiducompany.org.uk 43 Southwark Arts Forum Uniontheatre.biz LISTING 46 11 Enigma Systems 22 The Lions Part 33 Tangled Feet PECKHAM P Southwarkartsforum.org 54 Young Vic Theatre 01 Globe Education 020 7708 3562 Thelionspart.co.uk Tangledfeet.com 44 National Theatre Studio Youngvic.org

AD SOUHTHAMP Shakespearesglobe.com/education 12 S2 Events Ltd 23 London Bubble Theatre Company 34 11:18 Nationaltheatre.org.uk/discover-more/ 22 55 Theatre Peckham 02 London School Of Musical Theatre S2events.co.ukCAMBERWELL NEW R Londonbubble.org TON Eleven-eighteen.com about-the-national/studio/what-we-do Theatrepeckham.co.uk WA Y

Lsmt.co.uk 13 Cover it Up 24 Bold and Saucy 35 3rd ThoughtPECKHAMHIL 45 InSpire 56 National Theatre

03 Lewisham College (incorporates Southwark College) Cover-it-up.com OAD 14 Boldandsaucy.co.uk 1stframework.org In-spire.org.uk Nationaltheatre.org.uk Lewisham.ac.uk/courseshome/performing-and-creative-arts 14 Scena Productions LLP 25 Company of Angels 36 Shunt 46 Blue Elephant Theatre 57 Waterloo East Theatre 04 London College of Communication Scenapro.com Companyofangels.co.uk Shunt.co.ukS L Blueelephanttheatre.co.uk Waterlooeast.co.uk Lcc.arts.ac.uk/courses/courses-by-subject/theatre-design 15 Flint Hire & Supply ltd 26 Futures Theatre Company 37 English TouringTREET Theatre 47 Menier Chocolate Factory 05 London South Bank University Flints.co.uk Futurestheatrecompany.co.uk Ett.org.uk Menierchocolatefactory.com/Online/default.asp To add your company to the Southwark Prospectus.lsbu.ac.uk/courses/course_search/ 16 Ken Creasey Ltd 27 In toto Theatre Company 55 38 Exchange Theatre 48 Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Map, please contact Futurecity search_post.php Kencreasey.com In-tototheatre.co.uk Exchangetheatre.com Shakespearesglobe.com at [email protected] AD AD TREET PECKHAM RO QUEEN’S RO CAMBERWELL CH PECKHAM HIGH S AD ON RO T URCH S TREET

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OLDHARBOUR LANE C Culture and creativity are big business. London’s status as one of the world’s creative powerhouses is substantively linked to the success of our creative industries and our cultural scene. Since 1998, growth in the Rise creative industries has outperformed almost every other industrial sector in the UK’s economy and was a key economic driver in the first decade of the new millennium, earning an average of £55bn a year. That’s more than t h e the construction industry and more than double of the value created by the insurance, pensions and pharmaceutical industries combined. It is likely that the creative industries will be an even stronger economic driver in this decade with many economists and politicians Creative predicting that they will be the UK’s most potent economic sector in the years to come (the Centre for Economic & Business Research most recently stating that “media, internet and creative” will outstrip finance as London’s most District important business driver by 2017). Currently 800,000 people work in creative jobs in London, representing 32 per cent of the national total and generating a GVA of over £10bn. Spitalfields, Covent Garden, Deptford: all London has seen a rapid expansion of its cultural offer over the past 20 years thanks to examples of different kinds of Creative sustained investment in galleries and museums, Districts. Southwark is next on the list… visual arts, film, theatre and dance, public realm and education. When people talk about Culture is at the heart of the world London and all the things they most love about around us, influencing and informing living in and visiting the city they invariably our rapidly changing environment. Some find themselves discussing culture. The volume cities, especially in Europe, are ahead of the of cultural assets and creativity in London game in achieving their goals through arts-led challenges that of all of the world’s global cities: renaissance. These cities have been successful more museums than Paris; four Unesco World in using the arts to help developers, architects Heritage sites; nearly twice as many bookshops and planners to brand the urban environment as New York; and more than 30,000 live music in ways that are distinctive and creative. performances a year. Creativity resonates London currently attracts many of the world’s throughout the city and for many, their most most talented people and companies, providing valued experiences will not be the treasures of the energy, ideas and investment that make us a renowned museum collection but their visit a member of a small group of world-class cities to an East End art gallery, watching a band play including such diverse places as Tokyo, New in Camden or discovering an architectural gem York and Shanghai. If London is to continue to among the layered history of London’s streets. compete for this global class of young, intelligent, London’s cultural vibrancy and creative multicultural and mobile professionals there industries are not distributed uniformly; rather, needs to be new thinking in the way we plan and they are focused within a network of relatively use culture in London. This means new ideas and small “Creative Districts”, each around one mile intellectual property as well as an ever-evolving across and with their own unique character and fertile cultural landscape of buildings, public and opportunities. Seeing London as a series realm, music, theatre, opera, education, sports of Creative Districts means a fresh approach and community activities. to planning. It provides a strong argument for All this must happen while encouraging the most successful parts of the city to be led Clockwise from top authentic districts that have a distinctive feel by a deliberately eclectic mix of uses. It also left: Shoreditch is an organic Creative to them in terms of community, architecture, allows for regeneration to prioritise character District with Brick design, retail offer and public realm. To and atmosphere, and results in places that are Lane; the Tea deliver this the public and private sectors varied, rewarding, intriguing, unexpected and Building; Spitafields Market; and plenty need a relationship that is about shared inspiring. This is the antithesis of the post-WW2 of restaurants values, objectives and language. planning policy that aimed to separate urban

10 futurecity futurecity 11 The Organic Creative District updated 21st-century terminuses (King’s Cross The Truman The area around Shoreditch, Broadgate and and St Pancras stations) and a major new offer Brewery in Shoreditch is Spitalfields could be considered London’s best for public realm, parks and open spaces. home to creative Organic Creative District. Here the creative The development also aims to attract major businesses as well energy is more about edginess and authenticity. businesses to the area by offering transport as cafés and bars It has evolved via the route of low rents for links, high-quality public realm, strong cultural artists and creatives, the colonisation and identity and great buildings. Renowned cultural re-use of areas of post-industrial decay and organisations already based in the area include the evidence of a history of immigration and the new St Martins College with its world upwardly mobile populations that have left famous fashion degree as the centrepiece, Kings their mark on the area. Place with its high-profile tenants (Guardian Be it Huguenots, Eastenders, Jews or Media Group, Pangolin Gallery), Anthony Bangladeshis, each community has left cultural Gormley’s Chipperfield-designed studio, the traces, architecture, trades, names, markets, Hub and many other cultural and creative food and festivals. Symbolised on one hand by industry-led businesses. Brick Lane, Bhangla-Town and the Truman Places that lead their regeneration through Brewery, and on the other by Heron Tower culture, whether through high-profile cultural and Broadgate, this organic Creative District is assets (such as a major new gallery) or through inextricably linked with the creative industries. many smaller street-level initiatives, often find Spitalfields Market is interwoven with design themselves stealing a march on their peers. and artists’ studios, as well as galleries and These places have been successful in “branding” crafts businesses. Like an Established Creative the urban environment in distinctive ways, District it is supported by large numbers of creating environments that people want to independent creative businesses with a strong live in and work in, as well as visit. sense of place and style that deploy the arts to As the Work Foundation put it, “A place create a symbiotic link between the customer, with... strong cultural assets can draw in the business and the area. the world’s most talented workers and entrepreneurs; a healthy and vibrant cultural, The Emerging Creative District leisure and sporting life can enhance cities These are often areas perceived as having low- in a positive way.” We couldn’t agree more. quality public realm and housing infrastructure, Covent Garden experiences into places for living, business, a common goal and offer demonstrable potential plus remnants of a traditional industrial base. is an Established retail and leisure. to reverse urban uniformity. Futurecity and its The areas are often marked by brutal, intrusive Creative District, able to build on Planning a cultural- and creative-industries research partner Burns Owen Partnership have infrastructure such as roads and rail. However, its heritage of live strategy as part of a development scheme from identified four distinct types of Creative District these areas also have a core of cultural life and performance inception (what Futurecity calls “cultural – Established, Planned, Organic and Emerging – community that add real value. masterplanning”) leads to better places that each with unique characteristics. In London, one example is Deptford: it has improve quality of life for residents, tenants attracted a burgeoning cultural population of and visitors. But there are also hard economic The Established Creative District writers, musicians, artist, designers and dancers. reasons why cultural masterplanning makes Some Creative Districts have long-established It also has a mix of nationalities that have sense as it offers three exceptional means of identities that are based on their main stayed in the area, bringing an attractive and adding value to new-build developments: occupiers. Covent Garden and Shaftesbury complex mix of shops to the high street to serve • Culture and creativity instill a distinctive Avenue have renowned histories of hosting the resident population (Emerging Creative communicable identity and a sense of place; theatre, for instance. They are home to Districts are most often all but invisible to • A vibrant cultural realm adds a premium that clusters of buildings providing a high-quality outsiders). Importantly, it also has some cultural attracts residents, business tenants and visitors; performing-arts offer including opera, theatre investment in the form of a theatre (Albany), a • Communication through culture creates and ballet, and are also supported by a fine Dance Centre (LABAN), a crafts centre (Cockpit alliances and a feeling of ownership, and grain of hotels, bars, clubs and restaurants. Arts) and a renowned art college (Goldsmiths), draws in local populations and stakeholders. With age comes heritage and the accidental which has brought some level of quality to the – alleyways and hidden squares, tourism cultural offer. London has always been a city of villages but and tolerance – and so building uses change. the unique identity of these villages, particularly Established Creative Districts have good The Planned Creative District the boroughs on the edge of London, has transport links and an identifiable location that London’s first planned Creative District is increasingly eroded. This greying of our cities is easy to find. They are often home to numerous “Albertopolis”, the area in Kensington and and the rise of chain businesses has resulted cultural supply-and-support businesses and Chelsea that boast the Science Museum, V&A, in the term “clone town”. How do we stop our attract many small private-sector companies Albert Hall and Natural History Museum. buildings and public realm looking the same that feed off the association with creativity and But the most recent example of this type of as any other world city? By encouraging these the uniqueness of the place. However, they are planned approach is King’s Cross, developed by Creative Districts with distinct identities where often places with high rent, densely packed and Argent and supported by the London Borough culture and business come together in lacking the capacity and space to expand. of Camden. This vast site will be home to two

12 futurecity futurecity 13 project was born in 1983 when photographers Flavio Lucchini and Fabrizio Ferri opened fashion-photography studio Superstudio in a disused bicycle factory. After leaving his role In 2001, Tortona’s transformation CASE STUDY as creative director of Vogue Italia, Lucchini into the heart of Milan’s fashion founded Edimoda, his publishing house, in an old chandelier factory on the piazza S. Eusebio. scene was complete Lucchini established three photographic studios within the building, predominantly for his own use but also for hire by other practitioners. Within a few short years, Lucchini found that the volume of hire requests outstripped transform the buildings into the Centre for availability and he began to look for alternative Advanced Studies of Cinema & Television and ZONA accommodation in the area, founding the rehearsal rooms and stage laboratories of Superstudio at number 7-13 via Forcella with Teatro all Scala, as well as housing other cultural fellow photographer Fabrizio Ferri. Lucchini initiatives. In the same year Lucchini purchased aimed to create “a Cinecittà of image, in which the former General Electric building on via we create, meet other people and learn as well, Tortona and founded Superstudio Più, a major TORTONA attracting great international photographers When the great Japanese architect Tado gallery, restaurant and centre for performance and training new Italian ones gravitating Ando turned the former Nestlé building into rehearsal studios, as well as a series of smaller towards Milan”. the headquarters of Giorgio Armani in 2001, gallery spaces, providing a creative alternative Over the following years Lucchini’s vision Tortona’s transformation into the heart of to the city’s more established Salone, home to for the Tortona district attracted other Milan’s fashion scene was complete. Milan’s Fashion & Furniture Fairs. photographers (such as Photo Studio Orsi, The fashion industry was followed by other In the second half of the 1990s, property which opened its doors on via Tortona in 1985), private, public and academic investment in the entrepreneur Alessandro Crivelli’s Estate4 Having become a depressing post-industrial tailors (such as the Brancato theatre costume area. In 1999, the Milano Municipality acquired implemented a less organic and more concrete district of Milan, Zona Tortona’s decline was workshop in the old Bisleri factory), restoration the Ansaldo complex, a large ex-industrial “cultural mix model”. It involved hosting laboratories and various small-scale workshops, premises in Tortona that had belonged to the activities linked to design, art, communication completely reversed by an influx of creative as well as major Italian fashion brands (Esprit, established Italian company. British architect and fashion in the dismantled factories and businesses. This is how it was done… Kenzo, Zegna and Hugo Boss among others). David Chipperfield was commissioned to creating an artist’s village, including advertising studios, inside the former Schlumberger The Zona Tortona district of Milan Above: Tortona precision-instruments factory. In addition, has developed a reputation for being a Design Week design school Domus Academy moved to attracts huge centre of creative activity. Similarly to London’s crowds; left: an a site close to Via Tortona in the early 2000s. Shoreditch, this activity has taken root in a exhibit from the The redevelopment of Zona Tortona post-industrial neighbourhood of the city with 2009 Fuorisalone and the influx of creative business provided event a strong creative reputation. The Zona Tortona fertile ground for the branding of the area as is not an official administration designation in a major Creative District, a project initiated the city but a branding device placed on an area by marketing agency DesignPartners in 2000 close to the Porta Genova railway station. with the aim of connecting the locations of the The neighbourhood, which lies south- Fuorisalone: the off-Salone exhibitions held west of Milan’s city centre, is an old industrial alongside the Salone Internazionale del Mobile district that owes much of its character to the (Milan Furniture Fair). By 2009, the district opening of the local train station in 1870 and the had 90 fair venues drawing 88,000 visitors. intersection of several canals. Over time, many The events contributed around ¤180m to local important international and Italian companies business during the Salone, with restaurants and – such as Ansaldo, Bisleri, General Electric, bars taking half their annual income over the Osram, Nestlé and Riva Calzoni – set up course of a few weeks and landlords earning 40 factories around the station to take advantage per cent of their annual rent in the same period. of the transport links. Smaller industries also In 2011, management of the Zona Tortona settled in the area, with artisans setting up was taken over by a consortium of local numerous workshops. businesses lead by Superstudio. The new However, shifts in industrial patterns from Tortona Design Week organisation updated the 1960s onwards led to many of these factories the visual identity of the area with the direct and workshops being left empty as businesses involvement of all the major local businesses, moved on. By the 1980s, the area had become as well as the assistance of designer Stefano a quiet, semi-abandoned neighbourhood, Giovannoni. It is another project that proved consigned to being part of the city’s suburbs. enormously successful – and proved the The transformation of Zona Tortona needed power of well-organised Creative District. pioneers. The first notable creative business Tortonadesignweek.com

14 futurecity futurecity 15 the governments of Québec and Canada to commit a 798 Art Zone – total of $120m over four years to help develop the project. The Dashanzi The centrepiece of this project is the 2-22 building, Art District, 75 per cent of which is given over to cultural uses Beijing, China CASE STUDIES such as community radio and arts organisations while The blend of individual, private and public-sector the rest is for commercial use, including restaurants and cafés. The building looks set to become a cultural intervention in the establishment of Creative landmark for Montreal. The district is already home to 30 Districts is enormously varied. These international performance venues with about 28,000 seats spread over case studies demonstrate how Creative Districts – approximately 1 sq km. It also supports some 8,500 jobs both planned and organic – can impact positively in 450 cultural, knowledge-based and artistic enterprises. Quartierdesspectacles.com on an area’s economic and social regeneration. BAM Cultural District Project Design District / Fort Greene, Brooklyn, USA Metropolitan Design Centre Buenos Aires, Argentina Proposed in 2000, the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Cultural District development plan has aimed to revitalise Barracas is an inner-city neighbourhood located in the the Fort Greene neighbourhood of Brooklyn in New York southeast of Buenos Aires and has been an economically City. Similar to the Quartier des Spectacles project (albeit disadvantaged district since the 1980s; a typical post- on a smaller scale), the plan is to capitalise on pre-existing industrial neighbourhood. The Project Design District cultural facilities and cultural organisations in the area to is a municipality-led programme to develop Barracas further develop the neighbourhood and clearly designate as an economic cluster of design-related cultural it as a cultural epicentre. production. Regeneration started with the rehabilitation Anchored by the world-famous BAM, the district of a wholesale fish-market site in 2002. Closed down will include new performance and rehearsal space as for half a century it has been refurbished as a modern well as office space for a diverse group of local arts 14,500 sq m architectural project to house the organisations. One of its most important achievements Metropolitan Design Centre. has been the construction of a permanent home for The building has an employment potential of 1,500. the Theatre for a New Audience, an internationally It houses government offices concerned with promoting renowned arts group with a 299-seat theatre, rehearsal Quartier des design and businesses in the creative industries and studio and public plaza. Bam.org Spectacles Project, foreign trade. It has 70 workspaces for the “incubation” Montreal, Canada of entrepreneurial ventures, an auditorium, classrooms, 798 Art Zone – The Dashanzi Art District spaces for workshops and laboratories, 3,000 sq m for Beijing, China exhibitions and displays, a specialised library, a museum, a cultural centre and a cafeteria. Preferential loans, A post-industrial area of decommissioned military factory tax cuts and subsidies have also been offered for the buildings in the Chaoyang District of Beijing, the Dashanzi restoration of buildings to design-related companies district began its regeneration in 1995. Artists started that base themselves in the area surrounding the renting cheap factory spaces to use as studios, creating an Metropolitan Design Centre. Cmd.gov.ar artist enclave in the area. In 2003, a series of spectacular and experimental exhibitions occurred in the 798 Art Quartier des Spectacles Project District, attracting many visitors and establishing the area Montreal, Canada in the public imagination. Consequently the number of artists and art foundations choosing to rent parts of the First proposed in 2002, the Quartier des Spectacles former factory complex increased dramatically in the is a regeneration project led by the City of Montreal same year. for its economically disadvantaged eastern downtown As the area became increasingly well known as a cluster section. The project’s goal has been to make the district of artistic activities the Beijing city government realised a permanent venue for culture, cultural enterprises and that it could deploy culture as a way to bolster economic craftspeople where a critical mass of cultural activities growth and deal with decayed industrial complexes. 798 can be developed. Many cultural institutions and venues was recognised as a site of “Creative Cultural Enterprises” already existed in this neighbourhood but the project’s in 2008 and thus the district was heavily promoted as intention was to give the area a boost as a designed a tourist attraction for the 2008 Olympic Games. Due Creative District. to the nature of the artist works in that area, plus the In 2003, the Partenariat du Quartier des Spectacles Bauhaus architecture of its building, the district has was created: a non-profit organisation consisting of 23 been branded by the government as a site of underground members from the cultural, real estate, educational and and experimental art activity, turning it into a trendy and business sectors, along with residents, the city and the fashionable district. The government is slowly developing government of Québec. In 2007, the city joined with the district as an international art centre. 798art.org

16 futurecity futurecity 17 In S e a r c h of S o u t h w a r k Visitors flock to this South London borough but do they understand the significance of where they are? It’s time Southwark put itself on the map.

WriteR In the summer of 2012 a spectacular “South London has been underdeveloped Seb Emina laser show lit up the sky above London, in past centuries,” notes Peter Ackroyd in PhotographER marking the official launch of Europe’s new London: The Biography, “but this neglect has Damon Cleary tallest building. But how many of those who allowed it effortlessly to reinvent itself.” How gazed up at The Shard that evening would true of Southwark and, as Ackroyd would no have thought as they did so, “I am looking at doubt suggest, the best way to understand Southwark”? Not that many, you would guess. how this reinvention is happening right now Why is it that so many eyes are on this historic is to go for a stroll with open eyes. You begin enclave yet so few realise it? to realise just how much has, until recently, Not just eyes in fact but feet, too. Year upon been hidden in plain view – and how much year, millions make pilgrimages to Shakespeare’s this is starting to change. Globe, the Tate Modern and Borough Market. Many of these wanderers, whether native South Work Londoners or visiting tourists, will never think, A good approach for our stroll is from the “I have just been to Southwark.” The same goes Thames, hitting the area’s north-west corner for those who visit the area’s countless theatrical from Blackfriars Bridge. It’s a chance to enjoy spaces, enjoy its convivial restaurants and pubs one of the more stunning of the capital’s river or take the Thames-side walks that offer some views and consider the tumultuous relationship of the most spectacular views found anywhere between the City of London and its southern from Twickenham to Tilbury. When people neighbour. As long as London has existed make the trip to Notting Hill, Hampstead or there has been a “south of the river” and those Hoxton they are excited to visit an area, with all living northside have glanced with anxiety and the intangible magic that this entails. They are as fascination at the banks facing them. excited about this as they are about any market, Back when London and the City were the gallery or pub that they might find there. Will the same place – walled, powerful and rife with same ever be true of Southwark? It should be. rules – you looked towards the river when

18 futurecity futurecity 19 you wanted to see what “outside” looked like, with all the threats and opportunities that it held. Beyond the tan water, boats and fruity pungency could be glimpsed a For as long as London has existed, Southwark different settlement, separate from London has been a place to which people come to but very much in its thrall – essentially the last bastion of its southern defences (it is from experience the thrill of live performance – this defensive “South work” that the name the most famous example is The Globe Southwark is derived). As you arrive at the south side of Blackfriars Bridge you can see the unmistakeable brick edifice of Tate Modern to your left and the art deco structure of the Oxo Tower to your right. Many will be aware that the former was once a as London has existed, Southwark has been power station; fewer will know that the same is a place to which people come to experience true of the latter, built in the late 19th-century the thrill of live performance. to generate electricity for the Post Office before The most famous example of this is, being purchased decades later for storage of course, The Globe, the original version purposes by the company that invented Oxo of which was established in 1599 with the stock cubes. Today the Oxo Tower Wharf has help of a well-known investor by the name two galleries, a tower-top restaurant and design- of William Shakespeare. The presence of oriented shops, acting as a vital link between the today’s reconstructed version is testimony bustling cultural institutions of the Southbank to the dogged vision of its founder Sam Centre to the west and the Tate Modern and Wanamaker but the original Globe was Shakespeare’s Globe to the east. established here for opportunistic reasons. Set foot from the bridge and you are in The performance of plays, along with Southwark proper, specifically the quarter several other activities deemed louche by known as Bankside. Londoners and tourists the authorities, had been outlawed north of alike wander along the river in both directions, the river. Part of the Bankside area, however, occasionally stopping for a bite to eat at was granted special status from the 12th Doggett’s, a huge sports pub with a Thames century onwards, meaning it was no longer view. Closer to Tate Modern they’d be very under the jurisdiction of either the City of wise to visit cult riverside pub the Founder’s London or the county of Surrey (of which Arms, where the magnificent vista and it was geographically part). Instead it fell delectable food more than make up for into the sphere of influence of the Bishop its box-like set-up. of Winchester, who gave the nod to the Tate Modern’s restaurant is not half bad performance of theatre – not to mention either. As for its exhibitions, they continue to prostitution and bear-baiting. The Puritans bring in contemporary art and huge audiences put a stop to such things in the 17th century from around the globe, combining shows from but theatricality (along with poverty, box-office certs such as Damien Hirst with lawlessness and louche behaviour) clung those from cult figures of recent art history to the streets; it continues to do so today. such as playful Italian artist Alighiero Boetti. A little past The Globe, the Clink Museum Recently the Tate has delved deeper into acknowledges another key part of the area’s its own vast structure, converting the old fuel relationship to the City. As well as being the repositories next to the turbine hall into The area to shoo away undesirable activities such as Tanks, a cavernous, labyrinthine space for acting, Southwark was where London stored its performance-based art. For Southwark, this undesirable individuals. It was home to several is significant. By embracing performance, the prisons, from Marshalsea – where Francis Tate Modern has not just widened its remit Raleigh once served time for getting into a fight but tapped into one of the most persistent at a tennis court – to Clink, the jail of the Bishop elements of the area’s identity: for as long of Winchester. Thus this special, autonomous, theatre-friendly area gained the oddly paradoxical title of The Liberty of the Clink: a place of both freedom and incarceration. The riverside section of our walk finishes The proximity of with the plunge into Borough Market. Nobody the Tate Modern to needs to be told that this is the most famous Shakespeare’s Globe illustrates Southwark’s food market in London and arguably the UK. On cultural density Saturday mornings a cheery crowd flocks to its

20 futurecity futurecity 21 covered halls, stocking up on everything from Unreal City The view from Eastwards is a lattice of transport links Inn, where Chaucer’s “nine and twenty” citizen Maltby Street fillets mignon to hand-made breakfast cereals, Emerging from Borough Market you encounter Park Street takes centred around London Bridge Station: railway travellers set out on their Canterbury Tales artisan food market in Borough Market as well as more down-to-earth groceries sold the mesmerising Gothic structure of Southwark and the magnificent arches, bridges and roads built on ancient transit pilgrimage in 1383. A quintessential Southwark by traders yelling “Pound a bowl!” Only the Cathedral, inside which are memorials to some Southwark Cathedral routes linking north and south. Transport is experience is that of wandering through a inexplicably restrained will fail to sample some of Southwark’s greatest figures, Shakespeare, part of Southwark’s blueprint: it is London’s damp black-brick tunnel beneath a train line of the street food. The aromas – frying chorizo, Geoffrey Chaucer and the actor Edward terminus town. Here is London’s oldest bridge streaked with green moss and grey lichen, then bubbling paella – are incredible, while the Alleyn among them. Today the cathedral, and railway terminus, still a gateway to the city turning a corner and stumbling, surprised, culinary reputation of the market has spilled one of Britain’s more liberal places of worship, centre for those crowds of commuters from the into a miniature high street of archways full of beyond the stalls into the permanent buildings is known for testing boundaries, often to south-east, immortally described by T.S. Eliot in food producers, theatre companies and wine on its perimeter. Restaurants such as Eliot’s controversial effect within the Church. For The Waste Land as flowing through his unreal bars. The face of 21st-century London has been Cafe and Brindisa draw hordes of dedicated example, Iin recent years it has hosted events city “under the brown fog of a winter dawn”. superimposed onto the transport infrastructure visitors week after week, as does the entirely by the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement This has been the home of one of London’s of Victorian England. ungentrified Market Porter pub, painted the and extended Southwark’s ingrained tradition major coach termini, the last stop for many a Further still, the traffic of London Bridge same green as the market’s cast-iron frame. of sanctuary to exiled Zimbabweans. merchant vessel and the location of the Tabard Station starts to give way to the brick Georgian

22 futurecity futurecity 23 terraces of Bermondsey. This part of Southwark has changed vastly since the mid-20th century when the factory that made garibaldis and bourbon creams was based here, giving it the nickname of “biscuit town”. The biscuit industry has given way to the cultural sector, now estimated to employ around 55 per cent of the local population; it was no whim or accident when the White Cube Gallery opened its third branch here in 2011. In and around the main drag on Bermondsey Street we find the legendary Southwark Liberty and Licence Playhouse (tucked, of course, into in a vault At Union Street’s junction with Redcross Way, beneath London Bridge Station) and the Shunt a glance to the left or right won’t reveal more collective, famous as an early pioneer of the than a primary school and a builder’s yard. At M Manze on Bermondsey immersive theatre movement. There is a textile But explore a little further and you’ll come High Street, graphic designers and and fashion museum by Zandra Rhodes and the across one of those surprising oases of serenity headquarters of influential online arts network that London serves up from time to time. tradesmen rub shoulders over hot IdeasTap. There is also a glassblowing studio Redcross Garden’s gentle lawns and peaceful plates of pie, mash and liquor with a blazing furnace in which goods are ponds, bounded by a strip of small cottages, made to sell in a gallery shopfront. To the left were founded by 19th-century social reformer and right are side streets where the entrances Octavia Hill with the purpose of providing an are plastered with the names of small creative “open-air sitting room for the tired inhabitants businesses – architects, web designers and of Southwark”. Restored and reopened in 2006, theatre companies alike. it continues to offer a small corner of almost A cabal of hip restaurants has arrived to rural tranquility. How different from when the cater for the boom, many of which belong to area was a den of villainy so dangerous that award-winning Spanish chef José Pizzarro. one surveyor was warned by the police that His mini Bermondsey empire includes tapas they rarely dared to venture there and certainly bar José; he also part-owns traditional pub The wouldn’t walk there alone. Woolpack. All this is not to say that the charm Like the Liberty of the Clink to the north, of the older Bermondsey has been banished by in days of old this area had certain unusual an influx of switched-on diners; at M Manze on freedoms. Known as the Liberty of the Mint Bermondsey High Street, graphic designers and (due to a short-lived money-printing base tradesmen rub shoulders over hot plates of pie, established here by Henry VIII), it offered mash and liquor. Even on Bermondsey Street sanctuary for debtors who fled here to avoid a traditional fry-up can be found at Al’s Cafe. being locked in a debtors’ prison. The victory If you were to keep heading east at this point of making it here often proved hollow: with you’d encounter Southwark Park jutting out no way to get past the debt collectors camped from the riverside before reaching the border on the perimeter, fugitives would often die with Rotherhithe, an area that – inevitably, of malnutrition or be killed amid the total due to its riverside locale – has experienced lack of law enforcement. much change since Charles Dickens described In the 1990s, during Jubilee Line extension it as “the filthiest, the strangest, the most work, contractors on Redcross Way excavated a extraordinary of the many localities that are strange graveyard. The Cross Bones Graveyard, hidden in London”. Instead, double back past as it became known, was a burial site for “single Guy’s and cross Borough High Street, meeting women”: a euphemism for prostitutes. The Union Street. Bishop of Winchester licensed them (they were also known as “Winchester geese”) but this tacit endorsement did not go as far as a decent burial: Above: Redcross Cross Bones was unconsecrated, shallow and Gardens is one of Southwark’s hidden haphazard. It later widened its remit to include delights; right: the all paupers. Local playwright John Constable Clink Museum is claimed to have been so struck with this place a reminder of the borough’s past that the work he penned in response, The Southwark Mysteries, was written more or less involuntarily. He holds a monthly vigil at the graveyard gates on the 23rd day of each month with performances from his alter ego: “South London shaman” John Crow.

24 futurecity futurecity 25 Given the absence of the Thames and its the underside of railway lines, there is a Above: Southwark’s tourists, Union Street feels strangely at one constant sense of expression in Southwark, urban lanscape begs to be explored; with the riverside whose path it echoes and especially of the theatrical kind. Even when right: The Shard perhaps this is due to the way it also hosts you are alone there will be faded traces of is the newest cultural experiences worthy of a day trip. creativity on the walls: traces of murals, edition to the borough’s skyline Here the establishment grandeur of Tate disintegrating theatre posters or single- Modern and The Globe are replaced by the sentence proclamations (“I Know I Have intimacy and energy of smaller premises. Lost,” says one line in gloss-white paint on Most visible is the Jerwood Space, the Rose Alley). This area was levelled during flagship London premises of the Jerwood the Blitz so most glimpses of older Southwark Foundation, with a mission of “supporting and are framed by postwar housing estates, but nurturing the arts”. Located in a refurbished these estates are leafy and proud and have Victorian school and offering a respected a tangible sense of community. contemporary art gallery, its café is always Local architect Benedict O’Looney has packed, often with those using the subsidised talked of the “jumps of scale” that characterise rehearsal space that the building provides. Southwark. He was mainly talking about the From the fringe Union Theatre set behind buildings (how true since The Shard arrived) a giant pair of wooden doors to an old French but he could equally have been talking of setting horn shop and a small gallery specialising in (that utter contrast when you step away from “works displayed on paper” (belonging, it turns the river), wealth (luxury and poverty have out, to a resourceful paper-supplies company), always lived side by side here) or sound (few the cultural organisations here are discreet, areas see tranquillity give way to raucousness which only enhances the thrill of seeking so completely and so often). them out. A railway arch at 100 Union Street, Perhaps this variety, packed so densely into for example, has been quietly hosting pop-up a relatively small area, explains Southwark’s happenings for years: a physic garden, a lido theatre-loving tendencies. A sign above The and an urban orchard among them. Globe said “the whole world’s a playhouse”. Whether you are passing Georgian houses In Southwark, that must have seemed literal; or warehouses or even traversing in many ways it still does.

26 futurecity futurecity 27 10 things TO DO IN SOUTHWARK

WriteR THEATRE 04 Poppy Sebire Gallery Seb Emina All Hallow’s Church, just off Union Street, has PhotographER 01 Southwark Playhouse quite a history. Partly destroyed during the Damon Cleary The powerhouse of the area’s theatre revival, Blitz it now has a “secret garden” that has been Southwark Playhouse was founded in 1993 in nurtured for decades by nearby residents. In the a disused workshop before moving to a vault 1980s it was repurposed as a recording studio; underneath London Bridge Station in 2006. Depeche Mode recorded their debut here. Productions range from new works to Anton Today the vaulted white-walled church hall is Chekhov classics and it is the one of the few the gallery of Poppy Sebire, one of London’s fringe theatres in London that can be counted most ambitious contemporary art curators. on for quality time and time again. 2013 sees Poppysebire.com it move premises once again, this time to a warehouse between Borough and Elephant Also visit: Bankside Gallery, Gallery@OXO, and Castle. Southwarkplayhouse.co.uk Jerwood Space, Purdey Hicks, Wapping Project HISTORY RESTAURANTS AND NIGHTLIFE The Bookshop Bankside, White Cube Bermondsey. Theatre hosts plays, musical 02 Shakespeare’s Globe 07 Open-City walks 09 The Table performances, film The Globe is not just an architectural SHOPPING The organisation behind the ever-more This restaurant on the taxi-heavy thoroughfare screenings and restoration but a fully fledged re-enactment popular Open House event has extended its that is Southwark Street doesn’t offer many literary readings of the most exciting time and place theatre has 05 Maltby Street Market and remit to a series of regular walks exploring the clues to how good it is. The seating is informal ever known, namely 17th-century Southwark. the Spa Road Terminus stories behind London’s most fascinating and and the name unremarkable; you’d be forgiven The only things missing are roast peacocks To the east of Tower Bridge you’ll find a beautiful architecture. Tales of Southwark are for expecting a standard central London eatery and terrible teeth. Audiences in the circular network of railway arches and storage hangars explored as part of the Bankside and Beyond serving midbrow fare. The reality is that it’s playhouse can watch the likes of Twelfth Night stretching from Maltby Street to Spa Road. On stroll, hosted by architect Benedict O’Looney. a total gem, serving some of the best modern and Richard III while rowdily standing in Saturday mornings these become a sprawling Open-city.org.uk Italian food found anywhere in the capital, and the yard or perching on wooden benches trail of outlets for the capital’s most discerning – for those setting out on a Southwark daytrip – up in the gallery. Shakespearesglobe.com food producers, including St John, Neal’s Yard, 08 Kirkaldy Testing Museum some of the finest brunch, too.Thetablecafe.com Monmouth Coffee and Bea’s of Bloomsbury. At the Blackfriars end of Southwark Street is Also visit: Bookshop Theatre, Menier Chocolate Try the Ropewalk market near Maltby Street a non-descript building, the words “Kirkaldy’s 10 The Lord Nelson Factory, the Old Vic, Shunt, Unicorn Theatre, for first-rate street food, artisanal produce Testing and Experimental Works” inscribed in Set into a brutalist cube of a building amid the Union Theatre, the Young Vic. and antique furniture. Maltbystreet.com stone above its double-doorway. On first glance idiosyncratic businesses on Union Street, The you might assume that it’s just an ornate remnant Lord Nelson is an excellent pub, its walls and ART 06 Bermondsey Street from the industry that once occupied the area. tables plastered with a collage of neon, vintage This attractive Georgian terrace is the centre In fact, this vestige of Clerkenwell’s Victorian comics and counter-culture poster art. The 03 The Tanks of gravity for Bermondsey’s creative industries past is still a working museum. David Kirkaldy’s clientele is creative and occasionally weird but The hulking Bankside Power Station building and an array of small, eclectic shops has sprung enormous machine, an incredible 47-feet long, always friendly. The chef has a penchant for that is now home to Tate Modern once stored up to serve those who are involved with them. was built to test the strength and breaking point unusual meats, with zebra, llama, ostrich and oil in a series of large tanks near the turbine There is now enough in the way of fashion, of various materials and is available to visit on camel making regular appearances on the menu. hall. As of 2012, these subterranean chambers floristry, gifts, furniture and affordable art the first Sunday of every month. Lordnelsonsouthwark.com have been reinvented as The Tanks, the world’s to attract visits from further afield, too. first museum galleries entirely dedicated to Also visit: Clink Prison Museum, Cross Bones Also visit: Brindisa, Constancia, Eliot’s Cafe, performance, installation, film works and Also visit: Bankside Mix, Borough Market, Cemetery, Redcross Garden, The Rose Theatre, Founder’s Arms, The Garrison, The George Inn, live art. Tate.org.uk Tate Modern, OXO Tower Wharf. Southwark Cathedral. José, The Market Porter, The Woolpack, Zucca.

28 futurecity futurecity 29 THESE WOODEN

S The description O of Shakespeare’s Globe in ‘Henry V’ is an appropriate catch-all for Southwark’s thriving theatre district.

WriteR Seb Emina

PhotographER Damon Cleary

Several decades ago, A music-hall scene sprung archaeologists in Southwark up during Victorian times, with made an intriguing discovery. Not establishments such as the Raglan the customary clay-pot fragments or Music Hall and the Winchester Music battered old coins, but a weapon. It Hall offering escapism from the dense was a trident – the kind that would, poverty – and thick smells – that in the days of the Roman Empire, characterised the area (in fact, it have belonged to a gladiator. It also included at least one circus). begged a question: was Southwark Then there’s today’s booming once the site of an arena or circus? playhouse scene, where the old It would make sense. Ever since and the new, the mainstream and Britain’s most powerful city was the fringe, combine to inspire a established on the north bank of growing realisation that Southwark the Thames its citizens have crossed is London’s most important theatre the river to escape its rigid laws district outside the bright lights and power structures and find of the West End. something a little different. Hence Where theatre is the subject and the theatre boom of the 16th and 17th Shakespeare is relevant, it seems centuries, when Newington Butts churlish not to begin by considering Theatre (believed by many to have that he, and Shakespeare’s Globe – been the first of the period), The so well-judged in its restoration – Globe, The Swan, The Blackfriars is the closest thing Southwark has Playhouse and The Rose formed a to a time machine. Those who enter raucous theatre scene that was a its open-air auditorium (described by Shakespeare’s platform for William Shakespeare; Shakespeare in the prologue to Henry Globe is a it also served the satirical dramas V as “this Wooden O”) have the rare thrilling example of Ben Jonson, the city comedies opportunity to imagine London’s past of Southwark’s theatrical pedigree of Thomas Middleton and the bleak not just by examining the architecture tragedies of Christopher Marlowe. for traces and clues but by witnessing

30 futurecity futurecity 31 it as part of an audience watching a audience by offering everything living, breathing cultural form. There from Gilbert & Sullivan musicals are period costumes, bygone accents to politically edgy comedies. and music interludes featuring all- Southwark’s fringe scene is led but-forgotten instruments such as by the Southwark Playhouse. One shawms and sackbuts. The audience of the theatre’s founders, Turkish stands in a pit up close to the players, producer and director Mehmet Ergen, as if at a rock concert. is said to have improved his English Excavation work presently taking upon arriving in London in 1989 place to revive Shakespeare’s other largely by listening to audiobooks old favourite, The Rose Theatre of Shakespeare plays. Four years near Southwark Bridge, looks set later he was teaming up with Juliet to expand this re-enactment of Alderdice and Tom Wilson to found Elizabethan theatre. It’s worth Southwark Playhouse in what was taking the time on a Saturday then a relatively untrodden part (the only day it’s open) to wander of town. Every year the cavernous, down Park Street and take a look 250-capacity room (soon to be around the Rose’s gallery. There transplanted to a new site near are occasional productions in a Elephant and Castle) has brought small playing space, although the together two productions, past

If Shakespeare was alive today he’d be found in the rich contemporary and fringe scene of the streets surrounding Southwark Station and London Bridge

ambition is for much more. Directly examples of which have ranged from opposite you can also see the a stage version of the gloriously commemorations that surround surreal Japanese fantasy movie Howl’s the original site of The Globe. Moving Castle to the world-premier Of course, if Shakespeare was of Philip Pullman’s The Scarecrow alive today he wouldn’t be found And His Servant. The latter, a working with the beautiful but well- fantastical and allegorical adventure, trodden material that is performed would not have been out of place at in Shakespeare’s Globe but in the rich the Unicorn Theatre, just round the contemporary and fringe scene of corner and famous for staging theatre the streets surrounding Southwark for young people that has grown-up Station and London Bridge. The production values. original Bard combined the masterful Southwark Playhouse is currently use of language with crowd-pleasing resident in a Bermondsey archway storytelling so it’s not far-fetched directly beneath a station platform. to imagine that his contemporary When historians look back at arts equivalent would be writing musicals. and theatre in the early 21st century The intimate but comfortable 180- they’ll notice a movement away from seat Menier Chocolate Factory is a conventional seated venues towards natural starting point. It has long been less conventional spaces: disused the testing ground of choice for new commercial buildings, tunnels and productions – Sweet Charity, A Little even car parks. Take Peckham, Night Music – before they transfer further towards Southwark Borough’s to long and lucrative runs in the southern edge. Once a suburb The Union Theatre West End. Alternatively, The Union associated mainly with Only Fools is a former paper Theatre in a former paper warehouse And Horses it is now the centre of warehouse that amid the pubs and galleries of Union gravity for south-east London’s artist hosts a variety of plays and musicals Street has created a fiercely loyal community. The event of the summer

32 futurecity futurecity 33 (for the experimental, immersive stuff you need to go the Old Vic Tunnels under Waterloo Station). If the West End is about huge budgets and The Old Vic is one of the few A-list stars, Southwark is about energy, repertory theatres that is a bona fide household name. While this intimacy and a determination to realise is probably not harmed by Kevin an authentic dramatic vision Spacey’s presence as artistic director it has, since 1818 when it was founded, been synonymous with dramatic excellence. Resident is the annual reopening of Frank’s, players at the Old Vic Company a Campari bar, sculpture park and have included stellar names such performance space on the roof of a as John Gielgud and Laurence semi-derelict multi-storey car park Olivier but it is a stoic supporter above the old multiplex cinema. of new talent, not least thanks The appetite for this kind of to the Old Vic New Voices scheme reclamation was whet by what in partnership with the Bermondsey- happened in the previous decade, based arts charity Ideastap. back towards the riverside. In The boundless variety of 2004, theatre company Shunt took Southwark’s theatre scene is dizzying. Southwark Playhouse’s exploration What can Shakespeare, site-specific of unorthodox theatre spaces even theatre and grassroots musical further, gaining stewardship of a productions have in common? What sprawling set of vaults beneath about the Bookshop Theatre (literally London Bridge Station. Visitors a theatre in a bookshop) on The Cut, accessed the Shunt Vaults through or the outdoor performances in front a small door near the Jubilee Line of London’s only remaining galleried entrance and were plunged into a pub, The George? Perhaps it’s best to world of theatre performances, art look at them in contrast to the West installations, live music and film End. If the West End is about dazzling screenings. The constantly revolving production values, huge budgets programme took place in a series of and A-list stars, Southwark is about rooms and sat somewhere between energy, intimacy and a determination immersive theatre, nightclub and to realise a dramatic vision with as avant-garde cabaret. much authenticity as possible. It was Today, although it no longer true of the Globe and the Swan in inhabit the Vaults, Shunt is still the 1600s and it’s true of Southwark very much part of the fabric of Playhouse and the Old Vic now. Southwark; you’ll see its old signs There is a place for both these kinds on fences and tunnels throughout of theatre in London; indeed, the the area. Its latest show, The two feed into each other. It’s not just Architect, “inspired by Labryinth a one-way stream of transfers from and the horror it contains”, takes Southwark place in a former biscuit factory to the West End: there are a number in Bermondsey. It is presented of West End musicals adapted for in partnership with the National more intimate surroundings. Theatre, just west of Southwark In New York they use the term but still part of that south-of-the- “off-Broadway” and in London, the river continuum. term “off-West End” is beginning Of course, not every theatre has to catch on in relation to many of to be an experimental venue and not Southwark’s venues. But it feels a every audience needs to be involved shame to define Southwark purely in in a play’s storyline. Both the Old terms of it not being somewhere else. Vic and its youth-oriented sibling If the West End is London’s theatre the Young Vic, right on the border district then perhaps Southwark The Young Vic between Southwark and Lambeth, should be acknowledged as its gives opportunities are traditional theatres in that they raucous, historic and imaginative to promising young actors provide fixed rows of seats and a cousin – or, put simply, London’s and directors stage in purpose-built structures playhouse district.

34 futurecity futurecity 35 Dimitri Launder Theatre is still considered and Helen Galliano of the Arbonauts, to be a social rather than a Peckham-based Southwark has a wealth of contemporary experimental a commercial pursuit by theatre company theatre practice and industry (both the majority of people commercial and subsidised) as well as a in London. But with its rich and significant performance heritage ability to bring businesses together and open up new markets, the performing- arts sector could provide Southwark’s economy and residents with… A unifying thread of conversation focused on the nature and visibility of of established theatres to the energy artistic work in theatre. It also covered whether opening up theatre practice and experimentation of younger to audiences in the way that the visual arts has achieved through Open Studio companies. These are all ways in programmes, “in-progress” exhibitions and opportunities to watch artists at which the umbrella of a theatre work in gallery contexts might contribute to a better public understanding of district, creating new links through and connection to the theatre economy. “If a theatre district idea could make the framework of geography, could the work of theatre more visible,” suggested Director of the Jerwood Space add value. (jerwoodspace.co.uk) Richard Lee, “then this might constitute a narrative Equally, for practitioners working thread that could stitch the concept together but equally provide a valuable in allied fields such as design (of service to the businesses and practitioners it unites.” costumes, lighting, scenography and Of course, many major institutions already programme valuable outreach theatrical space), the suggestion work that is considered and sustained. That includes the Young Vic’s rich of inviting industry and the programme of work with young people aged 8-25 and Southwark Councils’s general public into their spaces STEP initiative, which links theatre companies and the education sector across and business might present new the borough to broaden access to the theatre for the borough’s young people. opportunities, both for promotion Equally, new kinds of theatre practice – such as the immersive landscapes and for experimentation. “There a explored by companies such as Shunt (very much a part of Southwark’s is a commercial imperative for theatre ecology), and the innovation of opening up the development process individuals and companies working to audiences modelled by Battersea Arts Centre – have already begun to widen on the design side to get involved,” access through the work itself and to build a consequent buzz around the act of suggests recent Wimbledon College workshop theatre making. of Art costume-design graduate Grace What Union might offer for Southwark is a complement to this activity Nicholas (gracenicholas.co.uk). “It’s by providing a unified platform for it. It would be a means for this sense unusual for costume designers to have of “openness” or “open house” to extend out to the many different kinds the opportunity to make their work not a of creative and economic practices and opportunities that theatre already provides behind closed doors for the borough’s residents and businesses. In doing so it affords the potential to make links between audiences and theatres; theatre businesses and individual practitioners; theatre-makers, theatre shopfront institutions and private companies; people with space and people who need WriteR We are at the stage where research supports the proposition that it; and critically, according to many interviewees, between the established Alice Cicolini Southwark has a wealth of contemporary theatre practice and industry creative district of the borough’s northern riverfront and its emerging creative PhotographER (both commercial and subsidised) as well as a rich and significant performance districts in the south. Damon Cleary heritage. We also know that the concept that a visible clustering of creative “There’s something really important in the idea of mapping this territory,” practice supports regeneration is bolstered by international examples from says experimental theatre-maker and producer Helen Galliano. She and diverse places and contexts. As a result, the next stage is for a project such partner Dimitri Launder are the Arbonauts (arbonauts.org), a young theatre as Union to answer the needs of potential stakeholders and audiences so that company based in Peckham, part of an increasingly vibrant community of it will lift the theory off the page and put it into practice on the street. practitioners transforming the cultural landscape of this part of interior Futurecity approached a small sample of practitioners and businesses in Southwark. Mapping, they suggest, can emphasise a critical mass that an Southwark: major institutions, established theatre companies, experimental industry hasn’t previously identified, lending it a hitherto unarticulated validity. practitioners, individual designers and commercial theatre businesses. The At the same time geography, says Launder, “can be a potent tool to create idea was to gauge whether the idea of a theatre district has any immediate identity for new projects,” providing fertile territory for exploration. This value or “stickiness” for people working in the industry at broadly differing could include curated walks, guides by theatre practitioners, the identification levels of access and experience. We wanted to stimulate a debate about of temporary, hirable spaces for the presentation of new work and the where the gaps were and how they might be met by this kind of approach. creation of mentoring opportunities that connect the experience and reach

36 futurecity futurecity 37 Grace Nicholas, a recent Wimbledon College of Art costume-design Might a theatre district in Southwark contribute to graduate a better understanding of the strong commercial role that theatre plays in London’s local economies?

public, to initiate performance from stakeholders. A digital platform might offer innovative ways of exposing the a costume standpoint and to be able work of theatre that add value to independent, publicly funded theatres and to sell work directly, so it feels theatre businesses. This would act as an additional space for the presentation as though there are a number of of new work in an increasingly multi-platform practice context. Some of potential ways in which this kind Southwark’s most important creative industries sectors are leisure software, of project could be beneficial.” publishing and media; these are all skills that could be drawn into the project “The geographical implications and could facilitate experimentation with a digital-practice platform that a of London for audiences can’t theatre district might provide, taking Southwark’s theatre from productions be underestimated,” suggests in the round to theatre process all around. University of the Arts Business Implying that this approach might have creative as well as marketing Relationship Manager, Elizabeth potential also implies that it’s a project that requires creative direction. Cameron (arts.ac.uk). People “These things need someone with a passion to run them,” says Richard Lee. circulate most actively around their “Creative spaces are successful when they are intensely programmed.” A place of work or their homes and Southwark theatre district would be no different: to succeed it would require the population of the area around both dedicated and visionary staff but equally the investment and belief of its Waterloo Station is expected to constituents. Identifying partners and stakeholders willing to engage with the grow, across both residential and idea, and investors willing to provide initial support to resource it, would be commercial communities, by 30 part of the challenge of lifting this idea off the page. per cent over the next 15 years. There are different models on which to draw outlined in the following Initiatives that create opportunities pages, some of which – surprisingly perhaps – are funded solely through for animated, accessible open private investment (individual or consortium) because they fulfill a need in the spaces, leisure and active social market that its immediate beneficiaries recognise and are therefore prepared interaction – and particularly ones to contribute to. However, developing a viable business plan for Union is the that identify ways in which they next stage; the first stage is persuading local communities, companies and can become self-sustaining – will institutions of its possibilities. become increasingly critical to What makes the idea of opening up the work of theatre particularly contributing to the experience of appealing, beyond its benefits to the businesses themselves (theatrical and living and working in Southwark otherwise), is that the act of making its economy visible also suggests that its and neighbouring Lambeth. economy is viable and proposes that theatre is a practice in which people might At the same time, suggests Ben be able to make a living. It opens up the possibility that there are economic Melchiors-Cooper, hub manager as well as creative opportunities to be had in this sector, even though popular at Ideas Tap (ideastap.com) on perception continues to insist that it has more of a social than a commercial Bermondsey Street, “If you can give imperative. Theatre’s social and personal developmental role is increasingly people multiple reasons to visit better understood as its practitioners deepen their relationships with schools, somewhere they are more likely to communities and companies through workshops and outreach projects. want to go there.” An umbrella such Might a theatre district in Southwark contribute to a better understanding as a theatre district that can collect of the strong commercial role that theatre plays in London’s tourism and local together a multiplicity of “offers” for economies? Could it thereby model increased self-sufficiency but equally open London-wide audiences under one up the possibilities of a performative environment and a life in performance to marketing initiative could contribute a far wider audience? There’s only one way to find out… to increased economic opportunity for Southwark’s businesses. Futurecity spoke to Richard Lee (Jerwood Space), David Rosenberg (Shunt), The marketing platform for this Gavin Green, Ian Strickland and Jon Woodley (Charcoal Blue), Elizabeth kind of initiative, in the form of a Cameron (University of the Arts, London), Grace Nicholas, Helen Galliano permanent web presence, could also and Dimitri Launder (The Arbonauts) and Ben Melchiors-Cooper (Ideas be a creative one for its industry Tap). We would like to thank them for their time and investment of ideas.

38 futurecity futurecity 39 CASE STUDIES

These case studies emphasise the South London Art Map potential of the Union concept, assessing the success of similar initiatives around The South London Art Map (SLAM), launched in 2011, lists 112 galleries across three south London the world and proposing models that can hubs: Deptford, Peckham and Bankside. It provides an deliver the best results for Southwark’s excellent example of the way a map can catalyse creative theatre industry. networks, create marketing collateral and enhance perceptions of an area’s cultural offer, as well as how geographical clustering can transform an area’s profile. Centquatre, Paris The South London Art Map builds on the strong concentration of visual-arts organisations, temporary In October 2009, a new cultural venue for Paris was projects, artist studios and art schools in the three hub opened in the traditionally poor 19th arrondissement, the areas. Founded in collaboration between participating beneficiary of a ¤100m investment that transformed the galleries, including big-hitters such as the Tate Modern, city’s former funeral parlour into an artists’ studio space South London Gallery and Goldsmiths, it creates a user- of over 39,000 sq m. The aim was to revitalise a flagging friendly guide for audiences. This increases knowledge, arts scene and infuse a troubled neighbourhood with awareness of and interest in visual-arts activities in the funding; Centquatre’s success in doing this demonstrates area as well as promoting lesser-known galleries and the potential in opening up process to audiences. artistic talent that are under the radar. The city council provided the capital investment, plus Three maps form the core of the project. The maps The Camberwell ¤560,000 for the first round of new commissions. Ten pinpoint galleries and other cultural opportunities as Press project for the private sponsors (including a major bank and a private well as travel interchanges and good places to eat. They Brompton Design District’s London healthcare group) donated ¤1m each. The city is also can be viewed online or picked up in print form from Design Festival committed to supporting an annual operating budget of galleries. Online activity and events including listings, programme ¤8m but the centre itself is obliged to raise 30 per cent of gallery blogs and a magazine ensure the map stays its budget through commercial hires and leasing. relevant and up to date. Over 4,000 sq m accommodates 18 artists and 6,000 SLAM’s “Last Fridays” event encourages audiences Brompton Design District, London sq m has been developed for rentals and seminars, plus to pick a location and visit more than one gallery in an a larger space for events at scale such as art fairs. Artists evening. This regular event develops audiences and Leading design shops, exhibition spaces, museums and the Royal College of Art, Serpentine Gallery and the who occupy the Centquatre get studios and spaces in encourages networking between galleries. Visitors to institutions on and around London’s Brompton Road Victoria and Albert Museum – all of which contribute which they can live and work for free for between 3-10 South London galleries have trebled since SLAM was joined forces in 2007 to become the Brompton Design presentations and designer exhibitions to the Brompton months. The condition is that the work they produce will launched in 2009, due in part to the success of SLAM District. Initiated by South Kensington Estates (ske.org) in programme for LDF. Its permanent face is a website be on view at the centre for at least five years with the Fridays and SLAM tours. The fact that it is sustained by collaboration with local partner organisations, it has helped that is updated with new events, temporary pop-ups option to renew for another five, after which the pieces a consortium of small-scale, independent private-sector encourage new design in an area renowned for its exclusive and events by permanent members; it has extended the remain the property of the city and enter its collection. businesses suggests that the industry has recognised the retail and historic links with design and education since events programme to include Christmas retail openings. What differentiates Centquatre from most artists’ economic benefit of cross promotion to their individual the founding of the Victoria and Albert Museum and Royal Brompton Estates are custodians of their portfolio studios is the fact that the raison d’être of the building businesses, outweighing any potential concerns about College of Art 150 years ago.As a privately led creative and so have a long-term vision of the quality of the is the opening-up of the artistic process to audiences. a loss of individual identity or direct competition. district model, the Brompton Design District could be a environment they aspire to; they are keen to make South Occupants are obliged to interact with the public and The South London Art Map emerged from the place- potential structure for Union, and demonstrates that this Kensington and Brompton a vibrant destination. The therefore need to consider accessibility as part of their specific Deptford Art Map, which was launched by approach has economic value for stakeholders. company’s investment in the design sector as a means of creative thinking. Although there are complex artistic BEARSPACE gallery in 2009 listing 15 local galleries The programme, curated by leading design curator branding a district extends to the management of their questions to be answered in terms of the impact on creative and art spaces. Its expansion into a regional map Jane Withers, has included temporary installations property stock and the standards they expect of tenants. practice (answers to which will take longer to emerge), incorporating the whole of London’s south-east quarter in vacant buildings, shops and shop windows by Ron Indeed, their careful selection of tenants is considered early attendance figures suggest that the general public is has been a powerful force behind the growth of a Arad, Tom Dixon, Studio Glithero and Martino Gamper in line with their overall vision for the area. SKE have interested in being involved. There were 60,000 visitors on creative district now said to challenge East London’s among others. There have also been pop-up galleries by focused on introducing brands that feel independent opening night; 131,000 unique visitors to the 104.fr website claim to the title, a fact evidenced by the growth of curators Rachael Barraclough, The Future Laboratory (such as Gail’s Bakery) while at the same time ensuring in the first two months; and packed open rehearsals for SLAM galleries from 70 to 150 in three years. and Libby Sellers; a temporary bar designed and run by that established independent businesses that are aligned well-known directors such as Jean-Michel Ribes. Now working on a SLAM app for mobile devices, as RCA students; and an extensive programme of events with SKE’s vision can remain and flourish. The company’s “The idea is to not to have a place to show finished well as a SLAM art boat to bring audiences down river and exhibitions by emerging designers during the success has been in deploying a creative practice so work: it’s a place to enter into a process. So, it is difficult from the Tate Modern, the organisation continues to find annual London Design Festival (LDF). firmly rooted in the cultural assets of the area as to shift for audiences at first… [but] it is working,” says director innovative ways to attract visitors and has contributed The collaboration extends to Brompton’s established long-held perceptions of the environment around South Frédéric Fisbach. “People are interested in following substantively to the changing perceptions of this part design shops, showrooms and institutions, including Kensington Station as transitory and lacking any sense of artistic process.” 104.fr of the city. Southlondonartmap.com B&B Italia, Bisazza, Mint, The Conran Shop, Skandium, the “local”. Bromptondesigndistrict.com

40 futurecity futurecity 41 The Creative District Profiler North Southwark Creative Districts The Futurecity/BOP Creative District Example: Shoreditch and Spitalfields Gathered outside the formal City, were banned within the City itself, inextricably Profiler is a tool to identify the strengths that the parishes of St Mary Magdalen, St linked with all forms of illicit entertainment: Saviour and St Mary Newington that combine everything from bear-baiting and prostitution any neighbourhood can draw on to become to make up the London borough of Southwark to Elizabethan theatre. a Creative District with an exciting cultural creative were home to many of London’s disorderly However, after a long period of post- residents life that attracts visitors and investors. The trades. It was where you’d find bustling industrial decline the regeneration of North businesses in food, spices, coffee and tea Southwark is almost complete. Culture has Profiler also highlights any weaknesses. desirability younger residents alongside the illegal trade of clothing, furniture played a significant part in this, from the To run the Profiler, we first define the and rags, as well as the proliferation of infamous Festival of Britain in 1951 through to the Tate neighbourhood as a circle extending for prisons and poorhouses. Modern, which is now the most visited modern- half a mile around a central point; this Immortalised in the serialised novels of art gallery in the world. The wider area of North is a 10-minute walk. Then we score the Charles Dickens (one of which, Little Dorrit, Southwark can be seen as four separate Creative land ethnic was set within the borough) and the bawdy Districts, each with their own distinct character availability diversity neighbourhood from 0 to 5 against eight canvases of Hogarth (Southwark Fair, 1733), and charms: the South Bank, Bankside, factors associated with successful Creative Southwark became a focus for activities that Bermondsey Street and Elephant & Castle. Districts. We derive the scores from robust national and London data sources.* public cultural The South Bank transport offer Established Creative District Creative Residents retail The proportion of residents who have offer creative jobs (Experian) Millions of visitors enjoy themselves on the South Bank every year. Indelibly associated with the arts, it is home creative Younger Residents The scores are mapped onto a grid to reveal the to the ever-popular Southbank Centre, National Theatre residents The proportion of residents in the key neighbourhood’s unique profile. This profile can be and British Film Institute, as well as County Hall’s myriad 25-34 age group (Experian) compared to other Creative Districts. For example: entertainment venues and the London Eye. These major desirability younger residents • Established Creative District – Albertopolis arts venues are supported by a lively calendar of festivals Ethnic Diversity • Organic Creative District – Shoreditch and Spitalfields and open-air events, not to forget the wealth of hotels, The proportion of residents who belong • Planned Creative District – Kings Cross Central bars and restaurants. Many cultural suppliers and creative to ethnic-minority groups (Experian) • Emerging Creative District – Deptford businesses are based here, feeding off the creativity of the place and utilising the excellent transport links. land ethnic availability diversity Cultural Offer The Profiler is based on robust data sources and it draws The South Bank area is not as densely populated as The number of cultural venues on Futurecity/BOP’s many years of experience with many parts of London with only around 6,900 households. (Culture24 and Experian) major regeneration projects. However: This can be attributed in most part to the scale of the • The Profiler does not provide the final word on any area’s non-residential cultural institutions and businesses, Retail Offer neighbourhood. It provides a rapid initial analysis to and the breadth of the riverside pathway. The strength of the neighbourhood’s kick off more detailed planning. Local residents include a high proportion of young, public cultural transport offer retail offer (Venuescore) • The Profiler should always be used with a walking tour ethnically diverse and creative people. There is still of the neighbourhood. This will add rich qualitative an unusually generous amount of land available retail Public Transport detail. For example, the Profiler assesses the strength of for regeneration, particularly compared with other offer How good the public transport links are the local retail sector, but only a site tour will reveal the established Creative Districts such as South Kensington (Transport for London PTAL data) unique mix of shops and the experience of using them. and Covent Garden. Some schemes in the pipeline have proposed luxury residential units that will have a Land Availability hugely positive impact on the dynamics of the resident The area of land that is available for population. The most prominent scheme is the Shell * The profiler uses a unique combination of commercial and redevelopment (National Land Use Database) government data to establish an objective indicator of creative Centre, to be redeveloped by Canary Wharf Group and potential. Datasets include the national Experian demographic Qatari Diar. Their 400,000 sq m mixed-use development Desirability database, the retail ranking survey Venuescore, Transport will include two office blocks and three residential blocks, for London’s Public Transport Accessibility Level, and the The number of residents in the AB social class Department for Communities and Local Government’s National with retail space and a public square plus 1,900 sq m for who have chosen to live there (Experian) Land Use Database. culture and leisure uses, thus reinforcing the cultural identity of the South Bank.

42 futurecity futurecity 43 Bankside Bermondsey Street Planned Creative District Organic Creative District

Culture continues to be the main driving force behind the Bermondsey Street’s creative strengths have evolved ongoing and substantial regeneration process in Bankside. creative through low rents for artists, small creative businesses and creative The centrepiece is the Tate Modern, the most popular residents the gradual colonisation and re-use of former industrial residents modern-art gallery in the world that is undergoing a buildings. The cultural offering has become more visible major expansion. A cluster of heritage attractions has desirability younger residents through the establishment of venues such as Zandra desirability younger residents sprung up along the river towards London Bridge: Rhodes’ Fashion and Textile Museum and the White Cube Shakespeare’s Globe, HMS Belfast, the Clink Prison, the Gallery, one of the largest commercial galleries in the Golden Hinde replica ship and the ever-popular London world. The latter’s relocation marks the likely emergence Dungeon. Southwark Cathedral and the newly expanded of Bermondsey as South London’s answer to Hoxton. Borough Market sit a short way back from the river. land ethnic More about edginess and authenticity than its South land ethnic availability diversity availability diversity Yet despite the popularity of all these attractions, Bank and Bankside neighbours, Bermondsey Street is Bankside remains a work in progress. Most visitors tend supported by large numbers of independent businesses to stick to the river rather than browse through the wider with a strong sense of place and style that use the arts to area and many people passing through London Bridge create a symbiotic link between the customer, the business station and its surrounds find it to be gritty, congested and the area. Bermondsey Street residents include a very and difficult to navigate. public cultural high proportion of people in creative jobs even by London public cultural transport offer transport offer Bankside has a similar demographic profile to its standards: 55 per cent. The Bermondsey Street Festival neighbouring South Bank area: not that densely populated retail brings together and showcases the area’s creative talent retail and home to many young, ethnically diverse and creative offer every year. offer residents. However, Bankside is intensifying business use and residential development. The most visible developments are the Neo Bankside residential towers Elephant & Castle behind Tate Modern, More London and the 310-metre tall Emerging Creative District Shard tower. The Shard will cater for 55,000 sq m of new offices plus a luxury hotel and very expensive apartments. Meanwhile, major improvements are underway at The ethnic diversity of Elephant & Castle is well known; London Bridge Station (partly funded by the developer perhaps most visible are the resident black African and creative of The Shard) and in the surrounding streets and public South and Central American communities. In Elephant & residents realm. In the near future, Bankside will have more Castle shopping centre a variety of businesses operate that residents, workers and visitors, as well as more coherence capture the essence of Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru, desirability younger residents and, through The Shard, a new focal point that is visible among other countries. from across the whole of London. Regeneration of the shopping centre and surrounding housing estates has long been proposed. Many of the 1960s buildings are deteriorating and features that were innovative in the ’60s, such as subways and raised walkways, are now land ethnic availability diversity seen as creating a hostile environment. The regeneration Blackfriars Road Policy Context process is underway, led by Southwark Council and its commercial partner Lend Lease. Plans include 2,800 new homes and a commitment to net zero-carbon growth. North Southwark forms part of London’s Central important bridge, and Southwark’s plans foresee livelier, The Elephant is still developing its cultural offer. Its Activities Zone, with two Opportunity Areas: more populated neighbourhoods along the Road. More cheapness has long attracted artists and young Londoners public cultural Bankside, Borough and London Bridge [Bankside]; office workers in developments towards its north end, transport offer from a huge diversity of backgrounds, similar to nearby and Elephant and Castle. The Bankside Opportunity combined with more students and a growing ‘evening emerging Creative Districts such as Peckham and Deptford. retail Area is the main employment and business district economy’ at the southern end, suggest that demand for But Elephant & Castle also offers cultural permanence offer in Southwark. It contains 32% of the borough’s culture is likely to grow. Southwark’s Local Economic through the Imperial War Museum and London College businesses, employs over 90,000 people and produces Assessment concluded that cultural and creative of Communication, long-established nightclub spaces such 63% of Southwark’s wealth. Between 2003 and 2007 industries were an important part of the borough’s as Corsica Studios and several lively artist-studio projects. 57% of new jobs created in Southwark were in the economy. They accounted for 13% of total employment Community and grassroots cultural organisations are riverside wards of Cathedral and Riverside 1. in 2007. The largest creative industries subsectors active in the area and seek to imprint the creativity of local Southwark’s Core Strategy makes clear that most were publishing (25%), architecture and engineering people on the regeneration of the Elephant. For instance, new development will be in the opportunity areas. (18%), specialist design (19%) and gaming & electronic NEON (the New Elephant Open Network) organises Elefest, Southwark’s draft Supplementary Planning Document publishing (13%) and 58% of this creative industries an annual free film festival providing local filmmakers with (SPD) for Bankside notes that the area shares a special employment is located in the north of Southwark. an opportunity to showcase their work on the big screen. relationship with Elephant & Castle: the two will grow Elephant & Castle is thus emerging as a cultural destination together. The Blackfriars Road will therefore be an 1 Shared Intelligence (2010) Southwark Local Economic Assessment for those in the know; however, it is not yet on the map for the majority of Londoners or tourists.

44 futurecity futurecity 45 ABOUT FUTURECITY People. Culture. Place.

The burgeoning interest by world cities in Wharf Group), the City Arts Initiative (City Supported by Linden Homes. culture, commerce and regeneration demands of London), Vision Wembley (Brent) and a a new approach to placemaking beyond ground breaking placemaking vision document Lead Consultant: Alice Cicolini, conventional masterplanning. Futurecity is for the Royal Borough of Kensington & Futurecity; Mark Davy, Founder and the UK’s leading culture and placemaking Chelsea. Futurecity have worked extensively Director, Futurecity; Nicky Petto, consultancy, working in our urban centres, in Cambridge and other cities around the UK Project Manager, Futurecity. evolving culture and placemaking strategies and have recently begin work on ‘CreArt’ (an into deliverable outcomes. Futurecity believe EEC funded cultural programme) promoting © All intellectual property rights that culture should be embedded in planning cultural exchange between 12 European cities. reserved. No part of this document for new developments from the outset, in line Futurecity are producers and curators may be reprinted or reproduced with government strategies on sustainable involved in numerous public realm arts and or utilised in any form or by communities and the rise of the knowledge culture projects including the Crossrail arts electronic, mechanical or other and creative economies. Futurecity’s culture programme for 8 new stations, a major new means now known or hereafter and placemaking strategies promote the use sculpture by Richard Wilson RA for Heathrow invented, including photocopying of arts and culture to provide authentic and T2 in Autumn 2013 and over a 100 cross- and recording, or in any information memorable places. disciplinary projects involving artists and storage or retrieval system without Futurecity has developed ‘creative district’ other disciplines. permission in writing from Futurecity. culture and placemaking strategies for the Earls Futurecity ideas on the public realm and Court redevelopment scheme (Hammersmith the rise of the creative district can be seen at Unless otherwise stated, all images & Fulham and the Royal Borough of Kensington www.futurecity.co.uk and the Futurecity blog. courtesy of the Creative Commons & Chelsea), Vauxhall Nine Elms & Battersea Futurecity have also produced a cultural master- licencing agreement. Portraits and Opportunity Area (Wandsworth & Lambeth), planning toolkit, which provides place-making photo essay of Southwark by Damon Convoys Wharf for Hutchison Whampoa in and cultural advice, and is currently being Cleary. Deptford (Lewisham), Wood Wharf (Canary promoted through the RIBA CPD programme. Designed by Jeremy Timings www.jeremytimings.com

Statistical research: Alex Homfray, Slipstream, Richard Wilson RA. The sculpture has been commissioned by BAA for the new entranceway of the Terminal 2 building ‘Covered Court’ at Heathrow airport. Richard Wilson was awarded the commission in 2010 Chris Gibbon, Mattieu Prin, Burns following an international competition curated by Futurecity. Owen Partnership: http://bop.co.uk

Futurecity Ltd. 57 Clerkenwell Road London EC1M 5NG T: + 44 (0) 20 7407 0500 F: + 44 (0) 20 7407 3636 E: [email protected] www.futurecity.co.uk

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