Shrewsbury School Music School & Auditorium
An award-winning new music school for Shrewsbury School, including state-of-the-art recording studios, teaching, rehearsal rooms, ensemble / performance spaces, and specialist resource rooms.
Shrewsbury, 2001
The award-winning Maidment Building is a purpose-built music school, opened by the Prince of Wales in 2001. Accommodation includes facilities for both traditional musical instruments, percussion, electronic and amplified music, as well as recording facilities.
Designed while working at Pringle Richards Sharratt Architects, the building has an elliptical form, with practice and teaching rooms surrounding a main ensemble room which seats an audience of 200 people. Seating can be retracted to provide a rehearsal space for a full orchestra. and is ideally suited to concerts and educational courses as well as corporate and private entertaining. There is also a state-of-the-art recording studio within the building.
The RIBA award citation said: “Delivered within a budget considerably lower than buildings with similarly high acoustic specifications, this is an excellent new teaching facility for Shrewsbury School and a valuable addition to the cultural life of Shrewsbury itself."
Architecture Today said: “The design is a lucid response to context and programme fused with the resolution of the acoustic and wider environmental questions."
Pevsner’s Buildings of England: Shropshire, commenting on Shropshire buildings at the turn of the 21st Century, says “the only building in this group which has the luxury of standing free is the Music Centre at Shrewsbury School, 2000-1, by Pringle Richards Sharratt. Here the requirements of function are subtly allowed to generate is memorable form."
Location: Shrewsbury
Client: Shrewsbury School
Status: Completed 2001
Design Team: Pringle Richards Sharratt, Buro Happold, Arup Acoustics, Davis Langdon & Everest
Main Contractor: Bowmer & Kirkland
Timber Roof Subcontractor: Merk Holzbau
Awards: RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Award 2001, Civic Trust Award Commendation 2003, Brick Award Commendation 2002, Shrewsbury & Atcham Design & Heritage Award 2001, British Construction Industry Awards (Shortlisting) 2001, Wood Award (Shortlisting) 2001