The ambitious
Center for Music
in London will not see the light of day, blown away by the surge of Covid-19.
The plans, drawn by the New York architectural firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, presaged a monumental, very open building, where a jazz club, cafes, restaurants and spaces for social, cultural and educational activities were to complement a 2000-seat concert hall, designed to sound the symphonies.
But the £ 288 million envisaged for the project weighs too much at a time when the British economy suffers the backlash from the health crisis and Brexit.
We will have to be patient to see London compete with the Philharmonies of Berlin, Paris and Hamburg.
The decision comes from the City of London Corporation.
"
Given the current unprecedented circumstances, plans to create a center for music will not progress
," one of its spokespersons told The Guardian.
“
New proposals will be presented in the coming months for the site currently occupied by the Museum of London,
” adds the representative.
Read also: Conductor Simon Rattle to conduct the Munich Philharmonic in 2023
The Center for Music was designed as a place for the democratization of classical music.
Diller Scofidio + Renfro / PA
The Symphony Orchestra remains at the Barbican center
The London Symphony Orchestra, which will not have its "
Tate Modern of classical music
", is expected to remain at the Barbican center.
Barely arrived at its head, the conductor Simon Rattle, had declared, in 2017, about the room, that it was not cut out to "
accommodate very large groups, with a choir
".
A fervent defender of the
Center
for Music
, he saw it as “
the great concert hall of our time
”.
But since then, Simon Rattle has announced that he will step down in 2023
“for personal reasons”,
and that he will take the helm of the Bavarian Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra (BRSO).
His wife, Czech mezzo-soprano
Magdalena Kozena
, lives in Berlin with their children and in the English cultural milieu, more and more artists are considering settling on the continent since the UK left the Union. European.
Controversial from the start for its cost, the
Center for Music
is now officially abandoned.
The land could, however, be used for a modernization of the Barbican center, "a
40-year-old complex
", explained the city of London.
The search for architects should begin in the current year.