Login
Registered users
A project that brings music to life through education and community involvement
The Benenden music school was founded in 1939 in a building that was as good as hidden in the Kent countryside. It started life with around 200 students, but numbers grew over the years thanks to quality teaching and the school’s resulting academic success. As student numbers grew, however, the building became too small to meet the school’s needs and its facilities became obsolete. The project for the new music school was entrusted to Hollaway Studio, which has created a true musical hub, with a series of cutting-edge buildings to both support the school’s widely respected music program and attract prestigious orchestras, therefore involving the entire local community.
Hollaway Studio’s design of Centenary Buildings needed to respect a series of constraints, which included protecting the existing architecture and landscape, with the school building and surrounding parkland both Grade II listed. With organic shapes and natural building materials, the new complex sits harmoniously on the site. It comprises a 750-seat concert hall, dubbed Centenary Hall; the Sir David K.P. Li Music School, which includes the 150-seat Bonnie Yeung-Tsang Recital Hall; and over 20 practice rooms, each of which is specially equipped for a different instrument family. The practice rooms include the Metherell Song Room as well as an outdoor extension, providing students with a space to enjoy the surrounding parkland.
The new buildings are at the end of the “academic corridor,” which marks a line through Benenden, joining the music center to the libraries, and art and science facilities. Connected to the West Wing, the chapel, and the main school, the spaces flow out into the outdoor Seniors’ Courtyard, creating a tranquil space where students can relax. The concert hall and school are also linked internally by the Beethoven Bridge, a suspended walkway that crosses the school’s large double-height atrium.
The decision to build an impressive and cutting-edge concert hall reflected a desire to establish a connection between the academic and professional worlds, and for students to experience music as a single path. The reputation of the school and its state-of-the-art concert hall has attracted prestigious orchestras to the venue, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which is holding a commercial concert program in Centenary Hall. Student numbers have likewise grown by 25%.
>>> Discover Chapel of Sound, a concert hall hidden in nature
The centerpiece of the Hollaway Studio project is Centenary Hall, conceived as a “mini Glyndebourne” – that is, the renowned opera house in East Sussex.
Designed as if it were a musical instrument itself, everything in the architecture – from the materials to the shapes and technologies – contributes to achieving perfect acoustics.
The auditorium is inside a large elliptical volume. Its façade is distinguished by numerous timber fins, arranged vertically to resemble the strings of a musical instrument.
The interior, finished in timber paneling, was designed so that, as Matthew Harrison, acoustics consultant with Buro Happold, said, “a person can address the entire 750-seat audience at once without using a microphone.” A key element in achieving this was a grid of timber beams arranged in a diamond-shaped pattern on the ceiling. Besides its structural function, the grid reflects sound, creating warm and clear acoustics.
The doors to Centenary Hall are also designed to reflect sound. When open, they allow light to flood the room and visitors to come inside; when closed, they reflect sound, helping to create perfect acoustics.
“Centenary Hall is like a musical instrument in its own right,” said Guy Hollaway, principal partner of Hollaway Studio. To create a mini-Glyndebourne in this setting is an incredible feat of design and acoustic engineering, and truly shows how important music is as part of an education. We wanted to create something that could be used in so many different ways to benefit the school and its surrounding community for now and generations to come, and I think this building really does that.”
Location: Cranbrook, Kent, UK
Architect: Hollaway Studio
Completion: 2023
Client: Benenden School
Area: 2.375 m2
Photography by Hufton+Crow and Daniel Shearing, courtesy of Hollaway Studio
