The new indoor theatre within Shakespeare’s Globe in London is expected to be very timber-oriented, like the main theatre itself.
It was announced yesterday that the architects for the £7-8m, 320-seat building on the Globe site will be Allies and Morrison.
Fund-raising for the development is under way and work is expected to start in late 2012 so the theatre is ready for the 2013 winter season.
The Globe is open air and the new theatre will enable it to put on performances in poor weather and through the winter.
It is based on plans for a Jacobean theatre owned by Worcester College Oxford, thought to have been the work of renaissance architects Inigo Jones or John Webb.
As with the Globe, which is based on an oak frame, the new theatre will use authentic materials. These may include brick walls, but the roof frame, two galleries of seating and other internal structures and fixtures are likely to be timber-based.
Also signed signed up for the project is Peter McCurdy of historic timber frame reconstruction specialist McCurdy & Co. The company was involved in the construction of the Globe itself, spending six months surveying timber structures to find historic precedents to ensure authenticity and sourcing the oak trees from which to shape the 28ft columns and cross beams supporting the theatre’s 16-tonne ‘pentice’ roof.
