Chief Operating Officer of Southbank Centre to join 'Cultural Cities' at the Barbican

Image of Royal Festival Hall, part of Southbank Centre: courtesy of Groundwork.org.uk

Future Cities Forum is delighted that Susan Johnston, Chief Operating Officer at the Southbank Centre, will be speaking at our 'Cultural Cities' discussion event this month. She will be describing the economic and sustainability vision for the Southbank Centre and the lead up to its 75th anniversary.

Susan Johnston is the Chief Operating Officer at Southbank Centre, the UK's largest arts centre, where she leads on operational strategy across venues including the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Hayward Gallery. With extensive experience in both the cultural and broadcast sectors, Susan has held senior roles at Somerset House Trust, ITV plc, and BBC Children in Need. Her work focuses on building sustainable, resilient institutions that champion creativity and public engagement.

The Southbank Centre has recently reported:

'The Southbank Centre has its origins in the 1951 Festival of Britain with the Festival Hall the only remaining building from that time. Now the Southbank Centre is unveiling its new destination bar, the Seventy5th Balcony Bar named in honour of the Southbank Centre’s 75th anniversary in 2026. The bar’s location is on the fifth floor of the Grade I listed Royal Festival Hall, with panoramic views of the River Thames and the central London skyline.

'In further celebration of the anniversary, there will also be the launch of a bespoke programme - Southbank Centre Presents - which is designed to equip the next generation of cultural programmers and curators by developing their curatorial toolkit and practical experience. The work programmed and curated will sit at the heart of its 75th anniversary celebrations during the summer of 2026. 

'Supported by BAFTA-winning producer, Tobi Kyeremateng, the cohort will develop practical skills and theoretical approaches to cultural curation with contributions and insights from practitioners across a variety of art-forms. During their time on the programme, they will also learn from industry experts working at the Southbank Centre and our network of partners, including Skin Deep, Resolve Collective, SXSW London and Factory International.

'Over 20 months, from July 2025, the Southbank Centre will build a relationship with the cohort, developing and strengthening their practice via monthly talks, workshops, peer-led discussions and an intensive residential retreat. Putting theory into practice, the cohort will then have a range of opportunities to programme and curate events as part of Festival 75 – our 75th Anniversary celebration during May to September 2026  – as well as wider Southbank Centre programming.

Susan Johnston, Chief Operating Officer of the Southbank Centre, says:

“As we prepare to celebrate the Royal Festival Hall’s 75th anniversary, we’re thrilled to open the Seventy5th Balcony Bar making the spectacular balcony bar accessible for Southbank Centre audiences and visitors alike. It’s the perfect hidden gem to enjoy food and drink above the bustle of the city.”

Following our first panel discussion which Susan will be joining, our 'Culture and sustainable districts' workshop will be led by Gavin Miller, Director, MICA Architects. The firm has in depth experience of heritage buildings retrofit and the planning of cultural districts, including the masterplan for the Southbank Centre and the Fairfield Halls in Croydon.

Gavin has led or been involved in a wide range of projects and scales, ranging from cultural master planning at Greenwich Maritime, the South Bank Centre and the Lyric Hammersmith, to mixed use masterplans for Gilston Park Estate, Barking Town Centre, Pudding Mill Lane and Milton Keynes. He has led large scale campus masterplans for the Universities of Lincoln, Southampton and East London; and the delivery of award winning educational buildings such the School of Architecture at Lincoln and the Arts and Design Academy at Liverpool John Moores University. Gavin also led the design and delivery of Chester Balmore, one of the largest residential Passivhaus schemes in the UK, for the London Borough of Camden.

Above: Royal Festival Hall exterior with retail and restaurants - dusk Christmas 2024

MICA Architects has described the Southbank Centre and Fairfield Halls master-plans:

'The Masterplan for the Southbank Centre site covers approximately 12 hectares, bounded by the River Thames to the north-west, Waterloo Bridge to the north-east, Belvedere Road to the south-east, and the London Eye to the south-west. Public realm enhancements, the refurbishment and extension of the grade I listed Royal Festival Hall building, improved access to existing cultural buildings and the provision of shops and restaurants has enabled more street level activity and increased the number of visitors to the area by around 600%. The project provides a world class leisure destination which has rejuvenated the South Bank and returned the RFH to its former glory as the ‘Peoples Palace’.

'Since the completion of the first phase, Southbank Centre now has a wide ranging artistic offer covering contemporary and classical music, performance, dance, and visual arts. Its programme extends across ticketed events; major exhibitions; an extensive free programme including performances, activity for the public to join in and free installations and exhibitions.

Drawing on it’s remarkable legacy as a historic festival site, our team have continued to guide the urban design approach to support cultural programming, which has most recently involved a series of small-scale physical interventions e.g. new stairs, field undercrofts and terraces, with a broad range of temporary uses covering a wide range of arts. Given the successes of these incremental changes, SBC decided to replicate the festival model every year and make permanent some of its physical interventions, such as the roof garden.

Above: Skate park space below Hungerford Bridge, London Southbank in December 2024

'In 2014 our team developed a design for the relocated Skate Space at Hungerford Bridge, in collaboration with SNE, which was encouraged by SBC to help fund refurbishment of the next phase of the masterplan – the Festival Wing. Mr Borden a skating consultant said the proposal was “brilliant” and Southbank’s offer “unprecedented — nowhere else has an organisation done so much to accommodate and encourage skateboarding and urban arts on its site”. Most recently we have been providing guidance on the development of the Hungerford car park site, which will become part of the next phase of works to add to the arts facilities found on site.

'The transformation and rich vibrancy of the Southbank Centre has been achieved through the careful weaving and development of a series of cumulative interventions that have grown the diversity of activity and urban theatre. This approach, contrary to the failed previous schemes, resisted the temptation for a single overriding gesture, opting for a string of discrete architectural steps, gradually shifting and relocating access roads, unlocking pieces and creating new sites for interventions whilst keeping multiple institutions operational and growing. This maintains the sense of possibility and creative diversity over multiple terraces, corners and undercrofts whilst constantly enhancing service arrangements, landscape, security and legibility.'

Above: Fairfield Halls Croydon - courtesy MICA

MICA Architects says:

MICA’s redevelopment of the Fairfield Halls is the first completed stage of a new cultural quarter in Croydon’s town centre – a major milestone in the town’s ongoing regeneration. The firm describes the project:

'The Fairfield Halls reopened in 2019 to popular & critical acclaim and extensive local pride in their restored icon and a much-loved regional venue. The holistic design approach marries sensitive restoration of a large mid-century concert hall and playhouse theatre with new extensions providing flexible contemporary venues, event spaces, multi-use foyers and a range of food and beverage opportunities. All aspects are carefully designed to maximise enjoyment and revenue. The scheme is multi-award winning, including UK Refurbishment Project of the Year in 2020.

'Our brief, set by Croydon Council, was to refurbish and reinstate many of the original features from the original 1962 modernist building, while creating sustainable, inspiring spaces that will benefit the community for generations to come.

Fairfield Halls has served Croydon well as the principal cultural venue and community meeting place of the town for 50 years and we have fully researched the modern history of the site and building to inform the design of the proposed development. The building, designed by Robert Atkinson & Partners, first opened in 1962 and was inspired by the Royal Festival Hall. It has a rich history and has been host to such acts as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and the London Symphony Orchestra.

'MICA produced a Heritage Statement which traces the fascinating cultural history right back to the 14th Century, and outlines how the Fair Field site has continued a developing tradition of cultural heritage, now focused on the Fairfield Halls.

MICA worked closely with the conservation officer and made extensive reference to original archive drawings and contemporary photographic records when developing our proposals for this locally listed building.

The orthogonal arrangement of Fairfield Halls presents four distinctive elevations, which have some relationships to the adjacent uses of the urban realm but these are limited and the proposed development seeks to improve frontage and interactivity on all sides.

'Refurbished existing facades are formed of portland stone, granite and mosaic with large areas of single glazed steel framed windows. Existing precast concrete cladding to the high-level concert hall elevations and Ashcroft Theatre north elevation had failed and required complete removal and replacement using an innovative natural stone chip insulated render system to meet the requirements of integrity, acoustic performance and appearance.

'We chose to remove unsympathetic interventions such as a large 1980s kitchen extension and 1990s GRP-clad roof extension. Unsightly surface mounted remedial fixings to stonework were also replaced with discreet countersunk items to the main public elevations.The later, heavy, curtain-walling glazed entrance doors were removed from the main entrance and the original, set-back, entrance door line was reinstated using contemporary frameless glass entrance doors and screens to improve visibility and transparency to the entrance sequence. These were considered to be contemporary equivalents to the original plate glass entrance doors.A light-touch refurbishment of the Concert Hall provided new acoustic banners enclosed in bespoke timber housings to match the existing low-level acoustic panels in this venue. The original 1962 chandeliers were also completely refurbished and re-lamped.The Main Foyer was refurbished to reinstate the original 1962 designs including the saw-tooth ceiling profile, linear lighting diffusers, high-gloss columns, public balconies and reinstated chandeliers to the triple height Sun Lounge.

'The design delivers a sustainable, energy efficient and low carbon design for the large structure with the new elements delivering renewable energy to the existing buildings. The scheme delivers sustainable re-use of the existing buildings and parking structures, provide efficient new building services to reduce carbon in use and incorporate an Energy Centre with Combined Heat and Power system that will serve the adjacent housing development. The landscape design increases biodiversity, extending green connections, provide new cycling routes and improves pedestrian connections to the adjacent public transport hub. The project achieved ‘BREEAM Excellent’ and the CHP and its clever recycling of surplus heat energy from the Halls for adjoining residential developments delivers an innovative new income for the Fairfield Halls.'