BROADWAY CINEMA, NOTTINGHAM
In 1990 the London architectural practice Burrell Foley Fischer LLP won a competitive interview to undertake a phased development of Broadway, Nottingham’s Media Centre.
The core building is the Broad Street Wesleyan Chapel of 1839 by the Nottingham architect S.S. Rawlinson. The ‘shell of the chapel’ was acquired by the Nottingham Co-operative Society in the mid 1950s and underwent a transformation into the Co-op Education Centre, which was formally opened in 1959 by Professor Hallward M.A. Vice Chancellor of the University of Nottingham. In 1957 the Society had presented the chapel’s organ to the University.
The Co-op’s Film Society, founded in 1955, combined with the Nottingham and District Film Society in 1958 and the enlarged Society moved into the new centre. In time the film society transformed itself into the ‘City Lights Cinema’ and as such was sold by the Co-op for £450,000 in the Spring of 1989. Thus the Nottingham Media Centre, Broadway’s trading name was established in 1989 and planned to open in May 1990.
Earlier phase by Burrell Foley Fischer LLP included:
• The conversion of the ground floor to create an entrance foyer,
café/bar and Screen 2;
• Improvements to the forecourt and access provision;
• The conversion of the basement to create film and media training
and production facilities;
• Linking the administration building with the main Broadway building
and providing lift access to all facilities;
• Creating media start up units, creative industries offices and seminar
facilities.
The latest phase of development which has just be completed included:
• Two additional Screens 3 & 4;
• A multi-media laboratory;
• Additional offices for creative industries;
• An improved frontage to Broad Street, to make the building more
welcoming, better communicate Broadway’s engagement with film and
media and to provide additional space in the entrance foyer at forecourt
level, and in the mezzanine café at first floor level and in a new
break out space linking with Screen 1 at second floor level.
An opportunity to develop additional screens at Broadway arose when ‘Intermedia’, an independent organisation leasing the film and media production facilities in the basement, merged with Broadway. This enabled the rationalisation of how spaces were used throughout the building, and how training and services were provided and freed up the basement for development.
New Screens 3 and 4 and a multi-media lab were created through a radical refurbishment of the basement, which included excavation to achieve a reasonable clear height within the auditoria and screen sizes proportionate to the scale of the spaces.
Screens 3 and 4 are entered through a foyer with its own bar and toilets, enabling the spaces to be used independently of the rest of the building for special screenings and events and for daytime conferencing, educational events and previews.
New Creative Industries offices linked to the facilities within Broadway have been created on the footprint of a former single storey shop to the rear of the Broadway building.
Prior to the latest phase of development Broadway had an austere exterior, which did not communicate Broadway’s engagement with film and media.
A glazed extension at forecourt, first and second floor level has enable the frontage to be opened up and the entrance foyer and mezzanine café/bar to expand and establish a better visual connection with the street. A new space has been created within the glazed extension at second floor level which provides a break out space to Screen 1, when it is in use for functions and conferences.
Large sliding screens in the mezzanine café/bar and break out space opens the spaces out to the forecourt in warm weather and reduces the cooling load of the spaces.
A key to Broadway’s success over the years has been its eclecticism, which has helped to attract a wide audience and range of users, and to retain memories of the building’s history.
The latest phase of development has involved an enriching collaboration between a number of designers. Architects, Burrell Foley Fischer LLP have worked with Paul Smith’s designers on the interior design of Screen 4, the Paul Smith Screen and with Lief, a firm of interior designers with offices opposite Broadway on the shop fitting items, including the box office counter, bar counters and selection of loose furniture. Local companies such as Juicy Glass have designed specialised decorative glass, used as splash-backs in the new toilet areas within the Paul Smith Screen, trademark striped Paul Smith fabric has been used to upholster the sofa seats developed in collaboration between Quinette and Paul Smith’s designers, who also sourced the dark brown carpet and selected the rich purpose fabric to the Eomac acoustic panels and the deep purpose paint colour to visible wall and ceiling surfaces. Paul Smith’s designers also selected paint colours and sourced the distinctive chandelier in the lobby to the Paul Smith auditorium, within which is a trademark picture wall.
Burrell Foley Fischer LLP created the look with Screen 3, with banded Eomac acoustic panels in random strips of black, blue, lilac and purpose, Quinette seats upholstered in purple Bastille fabric. The same rich purple paint has been used on visible wall and ceiling surfaces and same dark brown carpet as in the Paul Smith auditorium has been used to achieve some unity between the spaces without detracting from the distinctiveness of the Paul Smith Screen.
Lief Design worked closely with Burrell Foley Fischer LLP over the shop fitting works and loose furniture within the public social spaces.
The result is a new cohesiveness throughout Broadway, while providing rich and diverse spaces appealing to a wide audience and retaining memories of the original building.
Burrell Foley Fischer LLP
March 2007
The fine bronze plaque showing a profile of William Booth (1829-1912), founder of the Salvation Army, may still be seen in the foyer of Broadway. The inscription reads: “In this building formerly the Broad Street Wesley Chapel, William Booth Founder and first General of the Salvation Army gave his heart and life to God in his fifteenth year in 1844.” He was made a Freeman of the City of Nottingham in 1905.
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