JEFF STACEY

Architect

Community Music Centre

Newtown Johannesburg

The Centre was intended as a new home for the SABC Orchestra or a new South African National Orchestra and as a community based music venue which would accommodate the full range of communal music in Johannesburg, by artists from choirs, jazz ensembles to symphony orchestras.

The Centre occupies the eastern open section of the Turbine Hall site and is intended to catalyse the development of arts related uses in the old industrial buildings.

The main hall is a metaphorical drum and the architecture is intended as flamboyant and demonstrative to enliven a precinct from which corporations have gradually moved away to wealthy enclaves north of the city centre.

The Centre contains a 1700 seat hall, 200 seat small or chamber hall, support spaces as well as offices, teaching, rehearsal and practice spaces.

The Centre is entered from a covered plaza faced to the south by the original Turbine Hall facade.

Unbuilt 1996