Hi everyone,
I'm doing a study of St Matthews Church and its possibilities of being a multifunctional space in the future for my dissertation. I was wondering if anyone could give some thoughts of the building and what other activities can take place in the building (aside from also being a church space)? Maybe affordable workspaces on the upper floors or a community centre, etc?
also
Gramsci I think you might consider approaching the people running the space.
To my mind St Matthews has a chequered history.
When I moved to Brixton in 1978 the vicar Rev Bob Nind who was very much evangelical, wanted to serve the community in other ways, and had already started doing the modifications, and church services at that time were in the Crypt cutting corners in terms of planning permission as later became apparent.
The first arrangement for running the building in mixed use was not financially viable - rather distressing for the two trustees, who could have have been made personally liable for losses.
The church then brought in a deaconess who was also a business manager at Nestle corporate in Croydon. She made the building more commercial, including getting in black theatre group in the space at the top. In the end this also turned out to be unsuccessful as the theatre group was itself not commercially viable and had to be evicted due to non payment of rent. This was all in the 1990s.
After that we had the disco era with Mass (a house/grime disco I believe) up stairs and the crypt has had various restaurant and disco type uses - the Bug Bar for example. To my recollection this was when they called it the Brix and the building manager was a former property salesman from Martin Barry Estate Agents.
Possibly it might be worth talking to the present vicar. I have only met him once, but the impression I had was he thought the project had not been good for the church itself. It was now effectively a tenant in it's own building with little control over what was happening around it.
Final point - Rev Bob Nind's alterations were done without benefit of a "faculty" (planning permission from the Diocese - of Southwark in this case)
I very much doubt that the diocese would have approved building an irremovable concrete lift shaft and spiral staircase in the centre of the church building. This renders the alterations absolute and permanent.
If you want to see how a church can be altered internally without destroying it I suggest you check out Christ Church Brixton Road.
Christ Church - at the Oval end of Brixton Road has spaces created inside the large domed interior - but these were wooden framed and could be removed in future leaving the building as it was originally conceived.
Sorry to bang on, but this is something I feel strongly about form an architectural point of view. I appreciate there will be many who are happy to appropriate any space for entertainment purposes, whatever the original use.
on Brixton Hill, said he barely recognizes Brixton Village anymore…" and “...We get everyone — schoolkids, local gangsters
wanting protein shakes, yoga types,…"
