Swap event this Friday! →

Come along to the Bankside Swap Shop between 12 and 2pm this Friday. Swap your unwanted treasures, learn how to upholster a chair, eat cake and celebrate Climate Week 2013! 

Stick a pony in me pocket, I’ll fetch the suitcase from the van… Borough Music School go to market!

Today Borough Market kindly offered Borough Music School a community stall in the Jubilee Market. It’s open until 6pm! Stop by to help raise funds for the charity, which offers subsidised music lessons for children aged 6-15. Borough Music School is selling items donated from local artists and designers (pottery, jewellery and more), greeting cards from the Royal Watercolour Society, delicious brownies from Konditor & Cook plus fabulous raffle prizes from supportive local businesses including Roast restaurant, Neal’s Yard Remedies and Tate Modern. 

Best pub in Bankside?

artsee-artscene:

July 18th @ Tate Modern

Grand Opening, “The Tanks”

Kicking off a 15-week programme of live art, performance and installation. Major works will include dance by choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, film installation by young Korean artist Sung Hwan Kim, and performance by Eddie Peake. A 24-hour screening of Christian Marclay’s “Clock” will also occur this summer, as well as a re-enacted participatory installation inspired by Suzanne Lacy. If you are in London (wish I was), these events are not to be missed!

Look out for the public pianos all over Bankside! We’re happy.

This Friday’s Better Bankside Bake Off Entry - A Classic Victoria Sponge. 

The Rose Revealed Project: exposing Bankside’s oldest theatre.

Last night after work I attended a very exciting project unveiling. Maybe you know about the Rose Theatre? It’s down on Park Street, on the corner where it meets Rose Alley? At the base of the Rose Court Office Block are some dark heavy metal double doors. A seriously unassuming entrance, these doors conceal a working theatre and the archelogical remains of Shakespeare’s original theatre: The Rose. I felt like Mary Lennox from The Secret Garden pushing through this heavy barrier and stepping into a beautiful, secret space, forgotten in time.

The Rose Theatre was erected in 1587 as London’s fifth theatre. From the Dulwich papers we know The Rose Theatre’s repertory included Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, Jew of Malta and Tamburlaine the Great, Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy and Shakespeare’s Henry VI part I and Titus Andronicus. The Rose’s success soon encouraged other theatres to be built in Bankside: The Swan, in 1595 and the Globe, in 1599. These rivals swiftly overtook the Rose, which fell out of use in 1603 and was abandoned as a theatre by 1606. Soon it vanished from the map altogether and laid forgotten and untouched for hundreds of years.

Following the demolition of Southbridge House (office block built in the 1950s) in 1988, archaeologists from the Museum of London uncovered some two thirds of the theatres ground plan. Thankfully subsequent development was sufficiently non-intrusive and a high degree of the archaeology survived! Battles were fought to save The Rose and in a large part, they were won: the site was saved. However, due to lack of funding the archaeological project could not be fully realised and the original Rose Theatre could not be fully revealed. Rose Court office block was erected over the theatre site and a dedicated basement space within the office building was created. At the project unveiling evening I could see the huge beams that had been put in in the 1980s to support the buildings weight, above the archaeological remains. I couldn’t help but wish they have been a little more generous with the height they allowed the remains. 

Intimate performances do take place in the grounds of the old Rose Theatre: in an L-shaped theatre space to the side of the original site. From 5th - 30th June 2012 they are showing Romeo and Juliet, something I’ll be trying to get tickets to. However, The Rose Theatre Trust want to raise funds to firstly, excavate the remaining sections of the theatre untouched in the previous archaeological dig and secondly, to make the Rose permanently available to the public, both as a historic monument and as a place in Bankside where entertainment can again take place, on a much larger scale.

The plans are BIG. There is a lot of work to do. The Rose Theatre Trust are relying on a bid going in to Heritage National Lottery. They have developed plans with Nick Helm of Helm Architecture. The idea is to really reveal the Rose. A glass floor would be installed over the archaeological site and Rose Court’s facade would be opened up, removing the barrier between the theatre’s interior and Park Street/ Rose Alley. As you can see from the images of the plans I have included, Nick wants to create two levels: the pit and then a galleried upper level, connected by a curved ramp. The environment will be one of display and learning and also performance.Towards the end of the evening The Rose Theatre Trust showed us a clip from Shakespeare in Love, set in Bankside in the original Rose Theatre. It was a lovely end and certainly ignited excitement within the audience: oh how great it would be to see The Rose Revealed… Fingers Crossed for their Heritage Lottery Fund Bid.

Joanna.

The view East from the top of the Blue Fin Building.

The Winter Garden, on top of the Blue Fin Building, Bankside.

Hanging out at the top of the Blue Fin Building, Bankside

So yesterday evening Better Bankside got to attend an event hosted by Network Rail at the Blue Fin Building in Bankside. The event was to celebrate the completion of Blackfriars Station South Side. It was interesting to hear opinions about the projects and see how building progressed during the three years Blackfriars Station was closed. See the time lapse video they showed us here. 

After the speeches and a glass of wine I ventured beyond the event room and explored the rest of the Blue Fin Building…

The name, the Blue Fin Building, comes from the fact that the buildings facade has 2,000 vertical fins on it of varying blue colours. These “fins” provide solar shading for the offices within, something that is essential as the entirety of the building is clad in floor-to-ceiling glazing. The building was designed by Allies & Morrison Architects and completed in 2006. It covers 495,000 square feet and has 12 storeys.

I sneaked out onto their roof terrace and took some photos of the amazing view! You can see for miles across north, east and south London.

Blue Fin is available for hire as an event venue. In addition to an array of sleek rooms available for hire they have really nice outside space on their roof terrace. With the most amazing views across the city.  Check out it’s page on BanksideVenues.co.uk. 

Joanna.