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Architect's Vision

Set back on a raised podium, as it exists today, the Lyric Theatre presents a forbidding and inaccessible front to the Lyric Square - its main point of access being a small shop front entrance on King Street. This neither serves to enhance the locality or to grasp the potential of responding to a new public space in the heart of Hammersmith.

The extension to the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is part of a long standing partnering initiative between the London Borough of Hammersmith and the theatre for the overall enhancement of the Lyric Square. In addition to providing much needed facilities for the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre, the project is integral to the new pedestrianised scheme for the square.

The stunning new glass extension by Rick Mather Architects', re-orientates the theatre forming a new public entrance that opens directly onto Lyric Square. The building has been designed so that it is clearly and distinctively illuminated at night providing a much-needed focal point to the new square. The extension will also provide the theatre with a new Rehearsal Studio and an Education Room dedicated to offering the local community with improved access to the arts.

The glass extension has been carefully designed to respect the scale and form of the existing Lyric, providing an opaque translucency as a counterpoint to the "fortress like" quality of the original building. It will form a central feature to a formerly barren side of the building, drawing and enticing visitors into the building. The spacious new entrance will incorporate a new box-office and café to make the theatre a more attractive and accessible place to visit. The development of the first dedicated and fully resourced room for holding educational events and projects will enhance the quality and scope of the theatre's education programme.

For the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre the extension with its new facilities will mean an improved quality of the work on stage - a better environment for the research and development of artistic work to ensure that the highest calibre of artists continue to want to work with the theatre.










The Lyric Web site ..................

The Lyric Hammersmith's new £2.6m extension opens in April with an international showcase of performance, dance, music and art. The project was funded from a variety of sources including the National Lottery (through Arts Council England), the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, various trusts, companies and individuals and through a programme of fundraising events.

Over 30 artists from 7 countries will come together in a celebration of the new extension: artists confirmed to date include Aurélia Thierrée, (France); Rosemary Lee & Nic Sandiland, (UK); Les Zanimos, (France); Eugène, King of the Frites, (Belgium); Oily Cart, (UK); Osadia, (Spain/Australia); Rebwar, (UK/Kurdistan); Indefinite Articles (UK); Teatro Di Piazza O D'Occasione (TPO), (Italy); and Whalley Range All Stars, (UK).

The stunning new glass extension by Rick Mather Architects re-orientates the Lyric Hammersmith to form a new public entrance that opens directly onto Lyric Square, adjacent to the current building. The new frontage is designed so that it is clearly and distinctively illuminated at night providing a focal point to the new square which will be completed later in 2004. The extension will also provide the theatre with a much-needed new rehearsal space and an education and training room.

Over the 3 and 4 April, the theatre's annual international season, The Catch, consumes the building for a weekend phantasmagoria of free events to celebrate the opening with a chance for audiences of all ages to enjoy the new look Lyric.

Entering the new contemporary foyer and ticket office from Lyric Square, the visitor is first greeted by TOF Theatre's Eugène, King of the Frites, a contemporary puppeteer whose mini chip-making theatre is a makes the best frites this side of Belgium. From here the visitor moves up the grand slate staircase to the theatre's expansive Education and Training Room for Jumpin' Beans, another multi-sensory wonderland for tiny tots from Oily Cart.

Heading up to the new Rehearsal Space, one of the highlights of the event, Teatro Di Piazza O D'Occasione (TPO), do their magic with a startling participatory multimedia installation, an astonishing world of images and sounds, exploring the delights of the Japanese gardens. You are invited to experience the gardens, touching water lilies and walking over bridges, through flowers, a lake and the sea strikingly vivid images projected from the ceiling onto a white dance carpet.

Other performances evolve spontaneously throughout the building - in the theatre, the studio, on the terraces, in the main café and bar, in corridors and on walls: in the theatre, Aurélia Thierrée works her illusory visions with extracts from L'Oratorio d'Aurélia, mesmerising her audiences vaudeville-style, turning herself into an hour glass, watching a railway train pass through her torso, contorting her body through a set of drawers and performing in a style that owes much to the days of old burlesque.

Elsewhere, the demon barbers of Barcelona, Osadia, frantically perform spectacularly creative hair art on anyone who dares to venture into their impromptu salon; Les Zanimos, the zany puppet-object theatre present The Storyseller in a bookshop run by mice; Whalley Range All Stars present Bedcases, ten minutes of action-packed relaxation in a huge four poster bed; Stephen Tiplady and friends present shadow puppetry in the old ticket office; Kurdish artist Rebwar celebrates the new Lyric with his unqiue building-inspired drawings on a giant wall, embellished with contributions from the passing public; and Rosemary Lee and Nic Sandiland invite the audience to experience The Lyric Two Step, a unique duet with a virtual dancing child.

Artistic Director Neil Bartlett sums up the spirit of the opening celebrations and what they mean for the new look Lyric: "When I came to the Lyric (as Artistic Director in 1994), my ambition was to create a theatre that would present the bold and the beautiful not just to a discerning few, but to an audience as various as the city we live and work in. Ten years into my work here, I'm proud to be celebrating our achievements by throwing open our new front door. Rick Mather's new extension to the building announces in no uncertain terms that the Lyric is a public space dedicated to imagination and invention, right here on a busy West London high street."

Three of The Catch performances will continue into the following week - Oily Cart's Jumpin' Beans, TPO's The Japanese Garden and Les Zanimos' The Storyseller. TPO's collaboration with Kurdish visual artist, Rebwar will also be presented as a work-in-progress during the week.

Following The Catch, the celebrations continue with the legendary award-winning Shockheaded Peter for 18 performances only. The Tiger Lilies and the original cast have been reunited for the last ever London performances of this scrumptiously gruesome and wickedly ghoulish junk-opera inspired by Hoffmann's The Struuwelpeter.