Southbank Centre is the UK’s largest arts centre, occupying a 11 acre site that sits in the midst of London’s most vibrant cultural quarter on the South Bank of the Thames. We exist to present great cultural experiences that bring people together and we achieve this by providing the space and the opportunities for artists to create and present their best work and by creating a place where as many people as possible can come together to experience bold, unusual and eye-opening work. We want to take people out of the everyday, every day.
The site has an extraordinary creative and architectural history stretching back to the 1951 Festival of Britain. Southbank Centre is made up of the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery and the outside space surrounding them – as well as being home to the National Poetry Library and the Arts Council Collection.
It is the home to four Resident Orchestras (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) and four Associate Orchestras (Aurora Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain).
It is also the venue for the London Literature Festival, the annual Meltdown festival of contemporary music and the recent introduction of the Purcell sessions which encourage artists to push boundaries and forge connections across art forms.
The Centre is committed to accessibility to the Arts and runs an extensive and unique range of free programming within and outside the venues.
We also have an active Creative Learning role, actively engaged with local schools and the developers of the successful Art by Post initiative during the lockdowns. This is key to our accessibility and social impact aspirations and there is much more to do in this space.