On-site: Anacondas and Inglourious Basterds

The Kings Hall was constructed in 1916 and was likely the grandest addition to the South Road in Southall, England. This was midway through WW1 and Britain was cruising towards the £7Bn debt it had accrued by 1919.

Designed by architect Sir Alfred Gelder of Hull, the front façade comprises of brick and limestone, possibly some Coade stone which is timed to standard coursing of the era. The building originally existed as a place of worship and screened religious films. However, by 1926 the property operated as a mainstream cinema screening regular films. The cinema closed in 1937 and operated as a methodist church until 2013.

I rarely get to survey old theatres, let alone one’s which have components so close to end of life. The absence of power to the property, combined with its long windowless passageways made for an eerie inspection. This also led to the realisation that Fortis needed to invest in better site lighting for similar projects moving forward. The dark, eroding corridors of an echoey religious building are exactly whatever you are currently imagining.

Here’s a ceremonious shot of the theatre for context

The facades were suffering from dilapidation, fitting with what may be expected for a loadbearing structure that has received little maintenance. The undoing of the property’s health was not the inability for the façade to protect from inclement weather cycling, rather the inoccupation from within. Building occupancy plays a vital role in our thermal analysis as assumptions are based on a harmony of airflow, transient heat and moisture. Our codes, (and fairly) do not cover the dynamic nature of unoccupied buildings. The reference here is to heating and ventilation devices operating over an extended duration. I’ve advised clients on how buildings have the potential to die from the inside out before, and I’m by no means the first to do so. Philosophy Prof. and founder of Bau Biologie (Building Biology) Dr Anton Schneider, Ph. D joined the dots in the late 60’s and 70’s at the same points.

Additionally, there are the compounding effects from the lack of physical observations, specifically, failure to identify defects which can contribute to wider degradation. In Kings Hall’s case, a ruptured watermain went unnoticed. I’m told the torrent of water was likened to that of Hollywood movies, a cascading waterfall from the upper tier to the ground, with flooding reaching around 2 feet of water. The main entrance door must have been spraying water onto the street. Whilst I was traversing the site, the mains water valve was still dripping at a fair rate. Meanwhile, timber floor, along with supporting joists were sodden; each step resulted in a unique crack, squelch, crunch or snap sound. This part of the upper tier was at the end of life and at the mercy of the next prevailing weather that could enter the building.

If you look downwards from the upper tier into the house audience, you’ll notice that the parquet flooring has lifted into an arch, with about a 400mm radius due to warping from the flooding. It looks as if a giant snake has passed beneath, making its home in the abandoned structure.

Here’s the arched parquet flooring up close and yes, I stood on it, and yes it was unbelievably stable and expectedly stiff. I’m unsure if I will ever see a parquet flooring arch at this height again.

Here is the heart of the cinema, which is essentially a façade within a façade, the Projector Room.

You’ll recall the year of origin being 1916, the projectors of reeled film would have been similar to [this] . This is the steel door to the steel-lined projector room. The reason why this room is constructed from solid metal sheet is due to the nitrate film that was used during this period. It was highly flammable. So much so, that the reels had metal containers, that were stored in metal bins, in metal rooms. The concerns around the potential fire risks influenced the Cinematograph Act 1909. I’m unsure whether this met the requirements, but felt the safest room in the building. The Tarantino fans among you will recall the scenes of the premiere and appreciate the flammability of nitrate film. Safety film was later developed in the 1950s, or at least made more available.

Apparently steel guillotine shutters were typically installed over each window between the projection room and the auditorium. In the event of a fire, a low melting point fuse would activate, causing the shutters to close and isolate the projection room from the auditorium, should the glass break due to the heat. Automation continued trickling in through the remainder of the century.

Those are the portholes which are small, apparently due to the lack of large flat plate glass that was free of distortion at the time. In this image, it circles back to building biology quite literally. Note the blurred round windows in the auditorium, supplying just enough light and radiation through the porthole glass to warm the steel, resulting in a dew point and enough moisture to encourage the smoke like white spore/fungi; Essentially a perfect incubator to harbour life.

The markets in the UK are looking for existing stock that can be repurposed, some need to be acted on faster than others if the economics are to stack up.