Riba Stirling Prize 2014: Liverpool Everyman Theatre
- Published
The Liverpool Everyman Theatre, designed by Howarth Tompkins, has won the Riba Stirling Prize for best new building of the year.
The newly rebuilt theatre beat five other buildings - including the Shard and the London Aquatics Centre - to win the title.
For another chance to look inside the theatre, watch our interactive video.
For the non-interactive version of this coverage, read on.
Staff and visitors to the new Liverpool Everyman talk about the building
The Ev, as it is known locally, has a committed following. Its redesign and rebuilding had to maintain the values of the original - its "grubbiness" and history.
Consultation pinpointed the elements that had to be kept - from the cherished neon sign outside to the shape of the thrust stage that reached out into the audience. The subterranean bistro also had cult status as a hangout for actors and thespians. It remains downstairs, largely unchanged in style.
Gemma Bodinetz describes what was saved from the old Liverpool Everyman Theatre
The original Everyman was housed on a 19th Century chapel, but it needed to make room for an expanding events programme.
It was taken down brick by brick so that each one could be reused in the new building, both externally and exposed on the inside in the auditorium, bars and corridors.
On the front of the building are 105 punched aluminium panels featuring life-size images of Liverpool residents. Thousands queued to have their pictures taken, 105 were selected and have had digital versions of their pictures etched onto the metal sun shades.
Find out more about some of the local people featured on the portrait wall
Haworth Tompkins, the architects behind a number of theatres, including London's Royal Court Theatre and the temporary Almeida theatre at Kings Cross, spent nine years working with Everyman to create the £13,300,000 building.
It includes a 400-seat theatre, which mirrors the shape of the original, as well as smaller performance spaces, a rehearsal room, a public foyer, and a writers' room.
Architect Steve Tompkins describes the new Liverpool Everyman Theatre
Architect Steve Tompkins, of Haworth Tompkins, says: "People expressed the view that if we messed this up we needn't bother coming back to the city because it really is an institution that is owned and loved by the people of Liverpool."
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BBC Riba Stirling Prize 2014
Still images by Philip Vile. Historical images and Twelfth Night footage courtesy of Liverpool Everyman Theatre.
Filmed by John Galliver. Production: John Galliver, Susannah Stevens, Sarah Austin, John Lawrence.
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