Queen Elizabeth Hall (London, Great Britain)
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten.
The QEH was built along with the smaller Purcell Room as part of the Southbank Centre arts complex. It stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival of Britain of 1951, and the Hayward Gallery which opened in 1968.
The QEH stands on the site of a former shot tower, built as part of a lead works in 1826 and retained for the Festival of Britain. The QEH and the Purcell Room were built together by Higgs and Hill and opened in March 1967.
The venue was closed for two years of renovations in September 2015 and reopened in April 2018.
The QEH has over 900 seats and the Purcell Room in the same building has 360 seats. The two auditoriums were designed by a team led by Hubert Bennett, head of the architect's department of the Greater London Council, with Jack Whittle, F.G. West and Geoffrey Horsefall. They form part of the Southbank Centre arts complex along with the larger Royal Festival Hall (RFH) and an art gallery, the Hayward Gallery (opened in October 1968).