London's brutalist Southbank Centre becomes Grade II-listed
The Southbank Centre in London, which includes the Hayward Gallery, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Undercroft skatepark and was once voted "Britain's ugliest building", has been heritage listed.
Completed along the River Thames in the 1960s, the post-war landmark has now been Grade II-listed by the Department for Culture Media and Sport.
The listing follows a 35-year-long battle by conservation group Twentieth Century Society, with its recommendations being rejected on six occasions since 1991 in what the charity describes as "one of the longest running battles in British architectural heritage".
"The lack of listing had become a complete anomaly; it is admired as one of the best brutalist buildings in the world, so this decision is obviously very well deserved and long overdue," director of Twentieth Century Society Catherine Croft said.
Opened in 1967, the Southbank Centre's brutalist structure was designed by a team led by architect Norman Engleback as head of the Greater London Council's architecture department.
Its brutalist structure sits in contrast to the neighbouring Royal Festival Hall, which was built in a modernist style and Grade I-listed in 1988.
Defined by its board-marked concrete volumes wrapped in external walkways and terraces, the complex was voted as 'Britain's ugliest building' by readers of the Daily Mail in 1967.
However, Twentieth Century Society says the building is a "masterpiece".
"The complex is a highly sophisticated, sculptural masterpiece, with enormous richness of form and detail inside and out," Croft said.
"The experience it gives concert goers and gallery visitors is unlike any other venue in the country, its virtuoso spaces still unrivalled."
Since its completion, the centre has been subject to a number of scrapped demolition plans and proposals, including schemes by architects Terry Farrell in 1989, Richard Rogers in 1994, Rick Mather in 1999 and later by architecture studio Feilden Clegg Bradley in 2013.
Feilden Clegg Bradley later completed the restoration of the Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room in 2018, and the Undercroft skatepark in 2019.
Other listed buildings recently featured on Dezeen include the Heinz Isler-designed concrete-shell sports centre in Norfolk, which has been Grade II-listed and John Outram's postmodern Sphinx Hill house in Oxfordshire, which became Grade II-listed in 2024.
The photography is by Morley von Sternberg.
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