Battersea Arts Centre

The Battersea Arts Centre ("BAC") is a Grade II* listed building building near Clapham Junction in Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth that operates as a performance space specialising in theatre productions. It was formerly Battersea Town Hall. In March 2015, while a major programme of renovation works were underway, the Grand Hall was severely damaged by fire. Approximately 70% of the theatre, including the 200-capacity Council Chamber, the Scratch Bar and the Members Library, was saved from the fire and remains open.

History

The building, designed in 1891 by E. W. Mountford, opened in 1893 as Battersea Town Hall, the administrative headquarters of the Borough of Battersea, shortly after the borough was transferred from the county of Surrey to the newly formed County of London. It is built from Suffolk red brick and Bath stone.

Bertrand Russell's essay Why I Am Not a Christian was originally given as a talk in the hall, on 6 March 1927, under the auspices of the South London Branch of the National Secular Society.

Arts centre

An art centre or arts center is distinct from an art gallery or art museum. An arts centre is a functional community centre with a specific remit to encourage arts practice and to provide facilities such as theatre space, gallery space, venues for musical performance, workshop areas, educational facilities, technical equipment, etc.

In the United States, "art centers" are generally either establishments geared toward exposing, generating, and making accessible art making to arts-interested individuals, or buildings that rent primarily to artists, galleries, or companies involved in art making.

In Britain, art centres began after World War II and gradually changed from mainly middle-class places to 1960s and 1970s trendy, alternative centres and eventually in the 1980s to serving the whole community with a programme of enabling access to wheelchair users and disabled individuals and groups.

In the rest of Europe it is common among most art centres that they are partly government funded, since they are considered to have a positive influence on society and economics according to the Rhineland model philosophy. A lot of those organisations originally started in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s as squading spaces and were later on legalized.

Arts Centre (disambiguation)

An Arts centre is a community centre specialising in the arts.

Arts Centre may also refer to:

Organisations

Stations

Battersea

Coordinates: 51°27′50″N 0°10′04″W / 51.46377°N 0.16771°W / 51.46377; -0.16771

Battersea is a largely residential inner-city district of south London in the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It has Battersea Park, one of southwest London's main parks and is on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles (4.8 km) south-west of Charing Cross.

Noted for the long-awaited bringing of the London Underground in the 21st century, two main railway lines cross here at what was the country's busiest station. In all directions along these lines are several of the borough's council estates which replaced some of the severely overcrowded housing serving its former Power Station, its locomotive, carriage and heavy industrial works, with interpretations and variants ranging from brutalist to spacious garden courtyards. Elsewhere in Battersea are a growing proportion of private architecturally-acclaimed riverside, parkside and typical London homes. In 2001, Battersea had a population of 75,651 people. Landmarks include New Covent Garden Market and the Royal Academy of Dance. Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common border parts of this large district, which traditionally also includes Nine Elms. Railway stations in Battersea are in fare zone 2.

Battersea (UK Parliament constituency)

Battersea is a constituency in the London Borough of Wandsworth represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Jane Ellison of the Conservative Party.

Boundaries

1885-1918: No. 2 and No. 3 Wards of Battersea Parish, and that part of No. 4 Ward of Battersea Parish which is bounded on the south by Battersea Rise, and on the east by St John's Road.

1983-2010: The London Borough of Wandsworth wards of Balham, Fairfield, Latchmere, Northcote, Queenstown, St John, St Mary's Park, and Shaftesbury.

2010-present: The London Borough of Wandsworth wards of Balham, Fairfield, Latchmere, Northcote, Queenstown, St Mary’s Park, and Shaftesbury.

Less densely populated than late Victorian times and covering the north-eastern third of the London Borough of Wandsworth, Battersea in this context includes central Wandsworth and in the same way as Chelsea on the opposite bank, adjoins the Thames before flowing through central London.

It takes in all of the district of Battersea including its large Battersea Park which has played host in recent years to international circus productions, riverside and London Heliport and stretches eastwards to include Nine Elms and surrounding the Park: Queenstown; generally widely known large neighbourhoods of Battersea Town; and westwards to include most of Wandsworth town, including the riverside, Town Hall and East Hill. Battersea also stretches south between Wandsworth Common and Clapham Common to include Balham Ward, the eastern end of Balham (the west for General Elections is in Tooting).

Battersea (disambiguation)

Battersea is a district of the city of London. It may also refer to: