Education

Shrewsbury School Music School & Auditorium

Shrewsbury, Shropshire

A new music school for Shrewsbury School including teaching, rehearsal rooms, ensemble/ performance spaces and specialist resource rooms. The accommodation includes facilities for both traditional musical instruments, percussion, electronic and amplified music, as well as recording facilities. The building has an elliptical form, with practice and teaching rooms surrounding a main ensemble room which will seat an audience of 200 people. Seating can be retracted to provide a rehearsal space for a full orchestra.

The RIBA award citation said: “Delivered within a budget considerably lower than buildings with similarly high acoustic specifications, this is an excellent new teaching facility for Shrewsbury School and a valuable addition to the cultural life of Shrewsbury itself."

Architecture Today said: “The design is a lucid response to context and programme fused with the resolution of the acoustic and wider environmental questions."  Pevsner’s Buildings of England: Shropshire, commenting on Shropshire buildings at the turn of the 21st Century, says “the only building in this group which has the luxury of standing free is the Music Centre at Shrewsbury School, 2000-1, by Pringle Richards Sharratt. Here the requirements of function are subtly allowed to generate is memorable form.