Battersea Arts Centre by Haworth Tompkins has been chosen as the Overall Winner of the of the New London Awards 2020.

 

The Arts Centre, which also won the Community Prize and Experiencing Culture category, was praised for its sensitive repurposing of the existing building that had be mostly destroyed in a fire, as well as the inclusive nature of the project that signifies a new community-centred era for cultural buildings. 

The project joins a prestigious list of past winners including schemes such as Agar Grove Phase 1 and London Bridge Station.

Benjamin Prosky: ‘The Battersea Arts Centre is such an exquisite project. And it is exquisite in so many ways. There’s also a dedication to craft, to restoration, to design but not in a conventional way. I love this building because it is a teachable building. Students could come to the building and understand processes in an explicit way and the decisions that were made. It wasn’t just a restoration. It was a dedication to innovation, to craft, yet a really thoughtful way of evoking the spaces that were there before. You can read the story of the building by looking at it and I think that is an extraordinary thing in a building that had a terrible tragedy and could have been scrapped. It communicates to the visitor on so many levels and does that by being of service to a community. Extraordinary.’

Andreas Ruby: ‘For me the Battersea Arts Centre has this kind of overarching significance that defies typologies, categories and any such things. What I liked about it a lot is its public dimension and the aspect that was described by the assessor beautifully: ‘it’s not for me, it’s not for you, it’s for us’. I think this project radiates that sense of belonging and appropriation through all its pores. It’s extremely generous in terms of how to deal with the existing. It’s caring, and loving to a building someone might have disposed of. So, there’s an act of tenderness in the very gesture towards what remained that is quite astonishing’.
‘I also like the interpretation of what culture is. It’s not this kind of highbrow exclusive club kind of culture where you’re happy to be chosen while others are not. It’s integral and it’s inclusive and for it would be a kind of statement for our time.’

Monica von Schmalensee: ‘I believe this a statement for us in the jury about how we can reuse, rethink and rebuild – those three words that will be most important in the future. This project has is about what it has given to its community and the importance of existing buildings and the memories they can gain’

Peter Murray: ‘In our present situation it is Phoenix-like – it had a fire that destroyed much of the building but it could have destroyed the whole organisation. The fact that it actually came out of that and the new or refurbished architecture celebrates that night when it burnt down or marks it with leaving the soot and stains of the fire on the building makes it quite remarkable. But also, at a time when resurgence is very important makes it a very good choice. It really brings together the pragmatic approach of so many British architects’

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