Cadogan Hall: a concert venue with unexpected architecture, stained glass and history
- London On The Ground
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Built in 1907 as a Christian Science Church, the Byzantine Revival hall is now one of London’s foremost music venues.
The 950 seat concert hall is home to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and offers a programme that also includes other top orchestras and choirs in addition to rock, pop, jazz, folk, musical theatre and other events.
After visiting this unusual and interesting building recently for the first time (for a concert by the English Chamber Orchestra), I decided to look into its architecture and history.
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks and tours, please click here.
The building, off Sloane Square in Chelsea, opened in 1907 as a Christian Science Church. Its original purpose is still evidenced by the inscription over one of the entrances: ‘First Church of Christ Scientist’.
It was designed by architect Robert Fellowes Chisholm in the Byzantine Revival style, influenced by Eastern and Orthodox Christian architecture of the 5th to the 11th centuries.
The Church of Christ, Scientist (to use its official name) was established in 1879 in Boston in the United States by Mary Baker Eddy to “reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing”. The choice of the Byzantine Revival style seems to mesh with this aim.
Chisholm, born in London in 1840, is best known for his work in colonial India. He was an exponent of the Indo-Saracenic style - also known as Indo-Gothic, Mughal-Gothic or Neo-Mughal - which was used in many public buildings of the British Raj.
In 1865 he moved to Madras (now Chennai), where he later became consulting architect to the Government of Madras and ran the School of Arts. He designed several buildings in the south of India, including a school, library, post office, college, municipal offices, museum and pavilion at a cricket stadium.
Among Chisholm’s many buildings in India are two in Udagamandalam (anglicised to Ootacamund and popularly known as Ooty), a town I visited in the Nilgiri Hills of Tamil Nadu in 2007. These are the Nilgiri Library (completed 1869) and the Post and Telegraph Office (1883). I managed to find my badly taken photos from that trip.
These buildings do not display the intricacy of the Indo-Saracenic style Chisholm adopted elsewhere in India. However, the Italian Gothic style he used for the Lawrence School (1858) a few miles outside Ooty shows some hints of the approach he later followed for the Christian Science church near Sloane Square.
Chisholm returned to London in 1902 and worked on what would become Cadogan Hall, his best known work in the UK, from 1904 to 1907. He died in Southsea in 1915, aged 75.
The building’s stained glass windows were designed by Baron Arild Rosenkrantz (1870-1964), a Danish artist, sculptor and nobleman, whose influences included the Italian masters, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of painters, JMW Turner, William Blake and Claude Monet. He learned the skills of stained glass when he worked at Tiffany in New York.
Rosenkrantz's use of Celtic knot motifs and an under-stated colour palette for his window designs at Cadogan Hall allow light into the building and chime with the Christian Science aim for a more primitive approach.
The building’s use as a church lasted for 89 years, ending in 1997. Around 9,000 Christian Scientists had attended a talk in the Royal Albert Hall in 1907, while the church in Chelsea was still under construction. This demonstrates the popularity of the Christian Science movement in London in the early 20th century. Chisholm’s building attracted congregations of up to 1,400, but eventually fell into disuse after 89 years due to declining congregations.
In 2000 the hall was bought by Cadogan Estates, owned by Earl Cadogan, whose family have been major landowners in Chelsea since the early 18th century. This followed an unsuccessful attempt by Mohammed Al-Fayed, then owner of Harrods, to obtain permission to re-purpose the building as a luxury home. This was not possible under the Grade II listing granted in 1969.
Cadogan Estates knew that the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra was seeking a permanent home and saw the opportunity to convert the former church into a concert hall. Achieving this required significant changes to the building. The conversion was carried out by Paul Davis and Partners Architects.
A larger stage, new sound and lighting systems and a retractable screen were installed and the wooden pews in the stalls were replaced with more comfortable theatre-style seats, although the gallery still has its original pews (I was sitting in the stalls, so cannot say how (un)comfortable these pews are).
One of the biggest challenges in converting the hall was the acoustics, both in preventing sound from escaping the building and in enhancing its performance inside the auditorium. Modifications were made to the roof, resonator tubes were fitted to the ceiling and the walls under the gallery and even a pattern of absorption holes was included in the underside of the tip-up seats in order to meet this challenge.
It was also necessary to remove the church organ, built in 1907 by JW Walker & Sons Ltd (a company dating back to 1828, which also built the organ for Holy Trinity Sloane Street, just around the corner). The organ was taken to Christ the King Catholic Church in Gothenburg, Sweden.
The balcony at the back of the stage today is where the organ used to be. It was supported by a concave wooden structure on wooden columns, which are still there, as is a central decorative panel. The balcony is formed of part of the arched wooden balustrade that was originally at the front of the church’s smaller stage. For images of the interior before its conversion to a concert hall, please click here.
Cadogan Hall opened as a concert hall in June 2004 and the Royal Philharmonic’s first performance there was in November of that year. After little more than two decades, it has firmly established itself as one of London’s leading concert halls.
Although it is considerably smaller than London’s major venues, such as the 5,200 seat Royal Albert Hall, the 2,700 seat Royal Festival Hall and the 1,940 seat Barbican Hall, Cadogan Hall is one of the largest of the principal smaller venues.
Its 950 seat capacity is nevertheless sizeable. However, its steep rake, low gallery and clear sight lines create an intimate atmosphere and a strong link between audience and performers. There is also plenty of architectural detail to catch the eye.
Click on any image to enlarge
For those with an interest in London concert halls, you might also be interested to read Wigmore Hall: acoustic and visual delights - and a repeating history.
Walks available for booking
For a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks and tours, please click here.