Published
Wed, Apr 12, 2017, 17:10
- The team behind the Shoreditch venue hope to turn the art deco building into "a major arts venue for Hackney."
The team behind East London's Village Underground are behind an ambitious plan to reopen an 81-year-old venue, Hackney Arts Centre, as a multipurpose arts space.
Hackney Arts Centre is an art deco building on Stoke Newington Road that opened in 1936. Village Underground want to turn it into a space that offers music, theatre, performance art, lectures, talks and more. If they're successful, the centre will reopen to the public for the first time in four decades. The plan also includes restoring the centre's façade.
"We unearthed a hidden treasure—a dilapidated art deco theatre, locked behind rusted-shut doors for 30 years," Village Underground told RA. "It's incredible that you can still make discoveries like that in today's London. We've been working on the project for over a year. We want to breathe life back into this historical building and restore it back to its intended use, a major cultural and community space for Hackney and for London.
Members of the public can write in support of the proposal before the public consultation period ends on Friday, April 14th—you can find out how to do that at the Village Underground website. The proposal will then be put to a Hackney council committee in the coming weeks.