Venue Review

Character: Charming Victorian original with minimal modern interior

Funky Features: Internationally renowned contemporary art exhibits; spacious garden terrace in lush, green surroundings.

Location and History

Located between the buzz of Camden and the calm of Hampstead the Centre was originally a library built in 1897 and was partially bombed during WW2. More recently the building has been radically renovated by Tony Fretton Architects.  The Centre hosts some of the most exciting and challenging contemporary art on view in London.

Interior

A Victorian façade conceals the newly refurbished and fully modernised interior of the Camden Arts Centre, a building that combines cutting-edge technology with charming architectural features like high, stuccoed ceilings, tiling and varnished wood flooring.

The modernity of the art exhibited, is matched by the building ‘envelope’. By adding glass walls and frosted glass doors the designers have supplemented the abundance of natural light that floods through the Victorian sky-high windows.

Spaces for Hire

The light and airy foyer and bookshop area leads into the meeting room, a modern and comfortable space with a large meeting table and contemporary white furniture that looks out on to the garden.  Next door and spilling out to the terrace is the gallery café. The lower level is semi-paved with ‘snail trails’ indicating the former location of homes destroyed in the Blitz and traces of tiling and the markings of a fireplace retained. With its long grass and log seats, the upper level has an unusually lush character for the city, and the grandeur of this Camden meadow is enhanced by the presence of mature trees:  a perfect venue for a summer drinks, weather permitting. 

Receptions and dinners are not allowed in the upper galleries but guests using any part of the building are invited to walk through the these spacious and well lit rooms which exhibit internationally renowned artists.  Two spaces are for hire on this level, however, the artists’ studio and drawing room. These rooms are linked to the galleries by a large and open central walkway, its sunlit walls clad in original tiling.  Both hireable spaces on this level are temperature and light controlled for total flexibility and can accommodate talks, lectures, seminars, screenings and workshops.  Stuccoed ceilings, varnished wood flooring and the original Victorian spiral staircase in the artist’s studio make these spaces thoroughly charming.