Eden Court Theatre

Eden Court Theatre and Cinemas are the largest performing arts complex in Scotland, serving a widely dispersed audience across the Highlands of Scotland. In addition to presenting work they provide an extensive learning and participation programme, headquartered at Eden Court but outreaching to many rural communities.

The brief was to redevelop and extend the existing facilities to support an expanded artistic programme and brings together a rich mix of performing arts and film, with the new upper foyers provide space for visual art display.

The original entrance was sited beside the kitchen access, and the relocation of the entrance to face the city centre has transformed the approach across the newly landscaped setting. Replacement of fixed glazing to large sliding doors allows the ground floor restaurant and bar areas to connect directly with the exterior and maximise the potential of the south facing riverside setting, providing a deliberately ‘soft’ threshold to this arts complex.

Lifts serve all parts of the complex (with the exception of the upper most balcony in the original theatre) and coupled with better toilet facilities and discreet alterations to provide space for wheelchair users and their companions within the original theatre, make Eden Court much more accessible than previously.

We collaborated with a number of artists across the project, seamlessly integrating their work into the architecture. Mary Bourne’s depiction of the Garden of Eden as a series of ordnance survey notations on the floor fuses with Kate Whiteford’s primitive tracings on the landscaped entrance approach to emphasise this new interior/exterior relationship. Keiko Mukaido’s stained glass in the porch of the Bishop’s Palace reflects the variety of uses of this building, and Alex Beleshenko’s glass work ….. The chimneys atop the new extension are the external expression of the natural ventilation system employed in the studio theatre and cinemas were developed with artist Donald Urquhart and are titled ‘Sky Lined Forms’.

During the design development of this project the 1976 theatre by Law Dunbar Naismith was listed Category A. The interior of the original Bishops Palace building was sympathetically altered to better reflect the original layout by removing the dressing room accommodation into a purpose-built block, and refurbishing the rooms for office use at first and second floor. The principal compartments on the ground floor were restored to their original proportions, lost decorative features reinstated and these spaces brought back into public use. Comprehensive fabric repairs were made to the traditionally built Bishops Palace.

The 1976 theatre was carefully altered to suit the proposals and repaired where necessary to address some structural issues. This included the careful checking of the fixings of the high-level lead cladding to the foyers and the rebuilding of the outer leaf of the stage house and fly tower to ensure this was properly tied to the inner leaf. This required careful negotiation with both the Planners and Historic Scotland over the choice of blockwork to match the unusual exposed heavy flint aggregate of the original.

There is a dedicated exhibition in the link area between the 1976 theatre and the Bishops Palace, which continues in the main stair hall of the latter, and provides information on the fascinating history of the buildings.

The interior of Eden Court was tired and dated, and, in the case of the Bishops Palace, a detriment to the original building. Our work involved the removal of incremental changes to reveal the original spaces, restore original features (such as the grand stair in the Bishops Palace) and replicate features where lost.

In the 1976 theatre the foyer interiors had a distinctive character from the powerful geometry of the folding roof planes and we worked with this, with insertions such as replacement bars and the children’s theatre area sitting comfortably within the existing form.

Whilst Graven Images were responsible for the graphics and detail design of the counters for bars and box office we worked closely together to ensure a holistic approach to the interiors. The opening up of the ground floor enabled a rethink of the bar and catering offer and we liaised closely with both Graven Images and the catering designer.

The interior rooms were designed by Page Park, notably the intimate cinema spaces each having its own distinctive identity and layout.  The second theatre space, a 380-seat capacity venue, is housed within a concrete box with structure, upper galleries and services infrastructure carefully co-ordinated to give the space enough character when not in performance mode, but also not overwhelm the performance work being presented within it. By contrast the studio spaces are light filled with large glazed screens, and equipped to support smaller scale performances.