Levin Schumacher

Interiors Buildings Cities

View towards the south face of the new „House of Music and Assembly“ with the Barbican complex in its background.

House of Music and Assembly

As a critical comment on the current production of cultural buildings and the governmental dealing with state-owned money and land, this project challenges the parameters of a real competition for a new concert hall building in London which we were echoing in our graduation studio.

All square meters that were initially intended for commerce and retail are turned into functions that strive to serve the public domain rather than cooperate interests.

Besides the concert hall and its accompanying spaces, my proposal, therefore, includes a freely accessible music school, a public debating room, a nursery, doctors surgery and other public interiors in its programme. The last are held by the typology of an arcade which is crowned by a 7 story high social housing block which itself can be read as a statement against developments that come along with the ongoing housing crisis in London such as gentrification processes followed by physical segregation.

My building should be read as a plea for a farther sighted social- and cultural attitude towards building projects of this kind and reframe one of the most pressing questions in a neoliberal city like London: The one, who the city is actually for. My answer is very simple: Its citizens.

More information

Master thesis (Repository)