External Demolition 4 (and some internal strip out)

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Following the demolition of the main entrance and front of house areas, revealing the original sandstone box of the historic theatre, the team moved round to the north of the building to the old admin offices.

South and West Wings already demolished (in blue)
North Front of House Offices (in amber)

This area housed a series of rambling corridors with small cramped offices for the marketing, development, operations and box-office staff of the Citizens Theatre. The accommodation was in exceptionally bad condition and water damaged with leaks despite constant attempts to repair the roof (to the extent that eventually we fitted outdoor light fittings in the corridor so they water could safely run around them).

  • area centre right for demolition – broken heating system top right
  • finance, box-office and marketing offices

The images below were taken just before the construction company started stripping out. (The holes and debris scattered around is actually from an invasive survey that was done that knocked holes in all the floors, walls and ceilings in the demolition areas looking for hidden problems.) Even before we moved out these spaces were pretty grim for staff to work in. I remember once we had a surveyor looking at the building exterior who referred to this area as the ‘unoccupied derelict building’. He was shocked when told him that people were still working in there.

  • operations and development offices
  • kitchen corridor and offices

Some of the staff got a bit carried away with graffiti, ‘saying goodbye’ to the building knowing these bits were soon to be demolished.

The place was pretty much unrecognisable after the walls, ceilings and floor coverings were ripped out.

office walls and ceilings and kitchen area stripped out ready for demolition
you can see various bits of 60’s or 70’s wallpaper, old sandstone, brick and previous colour schemes revealed

The corridor that ran up against the auditorium and rehearsal room walls was carefully stripped back by hand before they sent in the machines to make sure that these retained areas did not come to any harm.

The demolition claw was then able to get in and take the rest down in no time at all. It was pretty much all over by the time I got to site.

  • demolition machine sitting on what was the offices
  • just finishing off the demolition

Just a spot of gardening to do.

And a bit of sweeping up with a large steel beam.

The gap that has been opened up through the demolition of this area will be used to provide space for a new kitchen, bar stores, front of house lift serving all levels of front of house, and a large heating and ventilation system that will supply and extract warm and cool air for the main auditorium.

With this block of accommodation cleared at the northwest of the auditorium you can really start to see the original sandstone structure more fully revealed.

Work will continue on demolishing the concrete floors of the old ground floor foyers in front of the auditorium wall, carrying out remedial works on the building next door, continuing the internal strip out into back of house, and putting temporary works into the historic paint frame ready to demolish the derelict building that is attached to it.