NOVEMBER | REVIEW
Printworks London.
Situated in Canada Water, Printworks
is the former site of the Daily Mail and
General Trust’s printing presses. It was
abandoned in 2010, when the newspaper
moved its printing operations to the much
cheaper region of Thurrock, in Essex. In
2017, however, the building reopened as an
exciting venue for events.
The cavernous halls that once contained
the printing presses now play host to the
world’s most prestigious DJs, alongside a
versatile programme of events. Printworks
is not a nightclub, but it was voted as the
ninth best club in the world in a recent DJ
Mag poll – a fact that Vibration Group CEO
Simon Tracey recounts with evident glee as
he shows us around the venue.
Printworks has paved the way for planned
redevelopment of the surrounding area by
British Land and Southwark Council. “The
growth of Printworks is about placemaking,”
says Tracey. “If London will survive as a
multicultural capital, it needs multicultural
spaces. Not just offices and houses.”
Printworks’ success has also been
the catalyst for Vibration Group, and its
many subsidiary companies, to spread its
modus operandi across London. The Group
has opened two significant new London
venues in the last handful of months – The
Drumsheds and Magazine London.
The Drumsheds is a 10,000-capacity
space that played host to 2019’s Field Day
festival, after it was forced to move out of
Brockwell Park. It comprises four enormous
warehouses, which served as a gasworks
from the 1930s to the 1970s. The second
of the Group’s new venues is the only one
which has been purpose-built from the
ground-up, but Magazine London still has
an industrial ethos. The venue’s designers
researched the area thoroughly, and styled it
after a former gunpowder factory which was
situated in the area.
When I ask Tracey whether the sleek black
interiors of Magazine owe any debt to the
industrial aesthetics of venues in Berlin,
he replies in the negative. “Honestly, we
don’t look elsewhere for inspiration – our
venues tell their own stories. People want
to understand their city and the buildings
that make up its history, and they want new
experiences, too.
“Renovating industrial spaces is a
marriage of convenience and demand.
It works for developers and consumers,
giving versatility and room to adapt. These
buildings are already beautiful – we are just
the guardians of the space, and it is up to us
to put the right stuff inside that space.”
Street spirit (trade out)
Industrial spaces are not just being
converted into venues for the live music
sector, either. London’s street food scene
has also been given a recent boost by the
introduction of Seven Dials Market, situated
on the site of a former banana warehouse in
the city centre.
It is the first permanent venue from KERB,
an organisation which incubates street food
businesses around London, and stages pop
up markets in a range of locations. The aim
is to cultivate these smaller traders into
larger businesses, and Seven Dials Market
is the result of consistent growth since the
company was set up by Petra Barran in 2012.
When asked about the industrial choice of
venue, Ian Dodds, KERB managing director,
says: “It’s so rare to find a space of this size in
central London, and we loved the glass roof
and large open-planned design of the main
atrium. It also seemed like a perfect fit for
KERB due to its character and food history,
acting as a brewery in the past as well as a
banana and cucumber storage warehouse.”
KERB has carried that history through
into the market’s branding, which uses a
striking pop-art banana reminiscent of Andy
Warhol’s Velvet Underground cover. It is also
present in the space itself, which features
an Instagram-friendly banana bench for
customers to take pictures on.
“We didn’t want Seven Dials Market to
only be a place with great food,” says Dodds.
“We wanted a space where people will feel
at home, and enjoy the atmosphere. We’ve
curated live music, food and entertainment
to all feel cohesive with one another.”
A new chapter
The industrial renovation sweeping
across London is, as Simon Tracey puts it, a
marriage of convenience and demand. These
are spaces with history and personality –
with quirks and flaws that make them stand
out from the crowd.
As the process of gentrification spreads
further and further outwards from the
centre of London, industrial venues offer
a rebuttal. They provide exciting, trendy
spaces were communities can gather,
as opposed to another soulless, glassy
skyscraper to maximise profit margins.
While they have their challenges for both
developers and venue operators, their lasting
appeal is undoubtable, and is writing a new
chapter into the history of our capital city.
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