Kings Place facts for kids
Kings Place from York Way
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| Address | 90, York Way London |
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| Designation | Grade A Commercial |
| Type | Classical / Contemporary music, Arts / Cultural venue, Spoken Word, commercial office space, restaurant |
| Capacity | Hall 1: 415 seats Hall 2: 200 seats |
| Construction | |
| Opened | 2008 |
| Architect | Dixon Jones |
Kings Place is a cool building in London's Kings Cross area. It's a special place that combines music and art venues with many floors of office space. Since 2008, the offices of The Guardian newspaper have been located here.
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What is Kings Place?
Kings Place was built as a large office building. Construction started in 2005 and finished in 2008. The building officially opened with a festival on October 1, 2008. Later that year, The Guardian and The Observer newspapers moved their offices into Kings Place.
This building is home to the first public concert hall built in central London since 1982. It offers many spaces for performances, art shows, and learning. The music, art, and restaurant areas are all connected by public spaces. You can even visit several art galleries for free.
Kings Place is the home of the Aurora Orchestra. It also often hosts other amazing groups. These include the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and London Sinfonietta.
Kings Place Music Foundation
The Kings Place Music Foundation is a charity. It was created to manage the music spaces at Kings Place. This charity runs a busy music program. It gets money from ticket sales and by renting out its spaces. People can use these spaces for rehearsals, recordings, and conferences.
The charity works with music and art groups. They offer many learning activities for the local community. These activities help people of all ages get involved in music and arts. The foundation aims to make art and music available to everyone. They offer affordable prices for all their events.
Where is Kings Place?
Kings Place is located on the east side of York Way. It's only about 150 meters from the King's Cross and St Pancras train stations. On its eastern side, the building looks out over Battlebridge Basin. This basin is part of the Regent's Canal. Many residential boats are docked here, and it's also home to the London Canal Museum.
A major art college, Central St Martins, moved nearby in 2011. This brought a big art community to the area.
Building Design
The architects, Dixon Jones, designed Kings Place. They wanted a high-quality building that would last a long time. It needed to be spacious and good for the environment. The design also had to fit in with the different buildings around it.
The building has cool wavy glass on the side facing York Way. This glass wall is made of hundreds of slightly curved glass sheets. It helps keep the building cool and strong against the wind. This wavy glass gives Kings Place a unique look.
What's Inside?
Kings Place has many great facilities:
- Hall One – This is the main concert hall. It has 415 seats for performances.
- Hall Two – This space is flexible. It can seat 200 people or hold 330 standing. It's great for performances or rehearsals.
- St Pancras Room – An auditorium for talks and speeches, seating 100 people.
- Three rehearsal rooms:
- Limehouse Room
- Wenlock Room
- Horsfall Room
- Facilities for recording and broadcasting events.
- Dressing rooms for performers.
- Office spaces for music organizations like the London Sinfonietta.
- The Music Base – A shared office space for smaller music groups.
- Pangolin London – A gallery that shows amazing sculptures.
Hall One: The Main Concert Hall
Hall One is a special part of the building. It's like a box that sits on rubber springs. This design keeps it completely separate from the rest of the building. This means sounds from other parts of Kings Place won't disturb the concerts.
The hall is built in a specific shape, called a "double cube." This shape is known to be great for the sound in smaller concert halls. Curtains can be pulled out from the walls. These curtains help change the sound for different types of music or speeches.
Amazing Acoustics
The design of Hall One was a team effort. The architects worked with sound experts from Arup. Before building, they visited many concert halls in Japan. They wanted to find the best design for Kings Place. They even made a computer model of Hall One. This model was tested against famous halls like the Concertgebouw. This helped them make the sound in Hall One perfect before it was even built!
Special Oak Wood
The beautiful oak wood inside Hall One comes from one single 500-year-old German oak tree! This tree was named Contessa. After being cut down, the wood was prepared and sliced. This one tree provided enough wood to cover a huge area. It was used for the panels, columns, and even the back of the seats in Hall One.
Food and Drink
The Rotunda Restaurant is located in the part of the building that faces the Regent's Canal. It has a cool curved bar that matches the building's shape. The Green & Fortune Café is on the ground floor in the middle of the building. Green & Fortune handles all the food, drinks, and events at Kings Place.
Office Spaces
The seven floors above ground at Kings Place are all office spaces. From some angles, Kings Place looks like four separate buildings joined together. This design helps bring light into the building. It also makes the upper floors feel like one very large space for the people working there.
Learning and Community Programs
Kings Place loves to share the arts with its local communities. These include the areas of Islington and Camden. The Kings Place outreach program focuses on education, community involvement, and family activities.
Music and art groups at Kings Place offer many classes and workshops. They also provide chances for people to join in performances. Past events have included drumming workshops for families. There have also been art projects with local schools. These projects used the building's construction as inspiration!
