Lightroom – ADC

Haworth Tompkins has completed an immersive arts venue in London’s King’s Cross for exhibiting digital work.

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Philip Vile, Fred Howarth, Justin Sutcliffe

Designed by Haworth Tompkins, in collaboration with performance design specialists 59 Productions, and the London Theatre Company, Lightroom is a new venue in London’s King’s Cross for exhibiting digital art work. The project is envisaged as a sister space to the Bridge Theatre, also by Haworth Tompkins. A high degree of technical coordination and careful acoustic design are central to the scheme, ensuring that the subterranean exhibition space can respond to successive artists’ imaginations and facilitate maximum creativity.

The exhibition space itself measures 18.5-metres wide, by 26-metres long, by 12-metres high, with a capacity of up to 380 people in promenade. State-of-the-art sound and projection systems enable artists to transform the vast room, which is approached gradually via linear acclimatisation zones from the arrival foyer and bar at street level on Lewis Cubitt Square. A large graphic sign announces Lightroom to the square within the larger context of the host building, designed by Allford Hall Monaghan Morris.

The foyer interior employs a similar visual language to the Bridge, with warm timber floors, paper lanterns, a central timber staircase, and a copper-coloured wall signifying the exhibition space beyond. Themes of compression, provisionality and contrasting light levels have been consistent explorations for Haworth Tompkins since the Royal Court in 2000, the studio’s first completed performance venue.

“Technically, the space is deceptively complex, but architecturally our task has been to design a new kind of cultural space for digital art: light-footed, highly adaptable and stripped back to its essential components”, commented Roger Watts, director at Haworth Tompkins. “Seeing David Hockney’s opening show is a powerful demonstration of Lightroom’s possibilities.”

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