Information about this scheme

The Fire Station, a new auditorium for music and performance, is the centrepiece of Sunderland’s recently created Culture Quarter, bringing cultural opportunities vital to the regeneration of the heart of the city’s centre. The development, by the MAC Trust, has created vibrant cultural buildings, including a middle scale auditorium, transforming a large derelict site. As the largest current cultural development in a post-industrial UK city, it is driven by a business model that delivers increased capacity, impact, future resilience, and sustainability for their ambitious cultural programme.The 1907 Fire Station has been repurposed and two listed public houses restored to provide a ground floor bar and restaurant which deliver income back to the charity to support the arts programme. The first-floor studios are let to tenants offering classes in dance (Dance City) and children and young people’s creative writing (Live Tales), and the second floor is occupied by the Northern Academy of Music for the delivery of its degree level music programme. The ground floor also houses a heritage centre and is the location of the ticket office for the new 550 to 800 (seated to standing) auditoria. The Fire Station brings a new cultural offer in a city with a historically fragile cultural infrastructure and low levels of cultural engagement and is now an indispensable part of the cultural life of the city with a music and performance programme designed to build trust, awareness and engagement amongst local audiences, as well as attracting those from further afield. The building has been designed to allow full access to both front of house and backstage for all users irrespective of mobility challenges.

Judges’ Comments:

“A delightful marriage of an imaginatively and sensitively converted Edwardian Fire Station and wholly new development on a vacant bombsite providing highly flexible indoor and outdoor performance spaces.”