Revamp of UK’s oldest arts centre unveiled
The Bluecoat, billed as the UK’s oldest arts centre, reopened on Saturday with a rebrand by Non Conform.
A £12.5m revamp of the Liverpool arts venue by Rotterdam architect Biq includes four new galleries, new performance spaces, as well as studios for artists and offices for creative businesses. It is more than 300 years old.
Liverpool branding group Non Conform is seeking to help reposition the venue as a site with both future-facing and historic creative legacies.
Bluecoat chief executive Alistair Upton says, ‘The building will be emblematic of the new Liverpool. You will walk into the historic courtyard and through the finest 18th-century building and out to the finest 21st-century one.’
‘New, enlarged facilities will present the best in contemporary visual and performing arts, and a programme of events related to creative tenants will put the Bluecoat at the heart of the Capital of Culture celebrations,’ he adds.
The venue reopened with its first exhibition, Now Then, featuring Paul Morrison, Yoko Ono, Alec Finlay, Janet Hodgson and Hew Locke.
The redesign has already won praise from delegates at Unesco as being a ‘fine example of harmonious building restoration’.
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