We have glass!

Here is today's picture of the new extension. It passed through the concrete phase into a period when it was covered with what looked like bin liners. With a bit of TLC, the fritted glass and metal is now being attached.

The new wing will not be complete in time for the Edinburgh Intnernational Festival, which is a shame, but the rest of the building will be. A week to go until handover and rather a lot to do!

Getting there and counting down

The auditorium is gearing up for the opening night Festival on the 14th August. We reported recently that the glass wing is slightly behind schedule and will not be ready for the Edinburgh International Festival in August. The plan is to 'bubble wrap' it until it is. Here is a link to the article in today's Edinburgh Evening News.

http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/topstories/Usher-Hall39s-refit-won39t-be.5382280.jp

The good news is that the rest of the hall - the staircases, podium, bars, toilets, etc., are nearing completion. The new internal colour scheme looks stunning. I can walk around the site now and can get a real sense of the finished article, and while it is frustrating that the wing won't be ready for August, I can promise you that the finished project is going to be wonderful.

The way that the architect has blended the old and new is tremendous and you can really celebrate the existing architecture in a way that you didn't before. The facade on Grindlay Street was largely ignored (or suffered from graffiti) but you can now see it as an internal wall when you stand inside the wing.

(Quiet) work will continue inside the wing during the festival so we can speed up the completion date.

Donald Runnicles Interview

http://news.scotsman.com:80/entertainment/Donald-Runnicles-interview-The-return.5236651.jp

As the building project heads towards a long awaited conclusion I will start blogging about music too. It's a nice warm feeling I get as I look forward to programming the hall again after such a protracted closure period. Being able to talk more about music than mortar is a good thing!

Anyway, Donald Runnicles & the BBC SSO...how exciting. Kenneth Walton can write about it better than I so read the link and call us to pick a ticket or two (0131 228 1155 or www.usherhall.co.uk)

It's glass Jim, but not as we know it

The construction of the 'new glass wing' caused something of a stir judging by the increase in photographers around the site compound and the subsequent Flickr images floating around. It was also a bit of a shock for us - I had only understood the construction plans on a superficial level so it meant that we had to temporarily downplay our liberal use of the phrase 'new glass wing' as it is, in fact, made of concrete!

The glass and metal 'skin' will be going up shortly - you can see from the image that the fixings are on. It is exciting watching it go up as you can see the big architectural statement that it will make about the Usher Hall and the arts quarter. One of the issues that we wanted addressed at the start of the project was that the Usher Hall had a very 'closed' look about it during the day and we wanted to create a more open feel.

I am due to receive some images from the contractor which will show some more detail, including the internal works such as the circular stairwell.

In the meantime we keep repeating our mantra, "it will be fabulous when it's finished". In the meantime, our concert schedule is beginning to fill up and we are selling lots of tickets for the Autumn.

Edinburgh International Festival 2008

One of the most challenging tasks we have faced on this project (and believe me, we have faced a few) was delivering the hall in a fit state for the Edinburgh International Festival. The photos were taken in May, about 10 weeks before the Festival was due to occupy the hall. I didn't want to show these prior to the Festival as they may have put some people off attending! Apart from the desire to have a sparklingly clean auditorium and good facilities for audiences, you have to get a Public Entertainment Licence, and to get that you have to pass stringent safety inspections. As a venue manager you get a bit concerned about things like missing stairwells, no electricity or running water, incomplete air conditioning systems, blocked doors, dust, and all sorts of other hazards. Anyway, I'll cut a very long story short and say that with well co-ordinated team approach we did it.

As ever with building projects it ran to the wire and contractors were still scampering around the hall with a couple of hours to go on the opening night. And to round it off, 2 fire officers turned up at 7pm on the dot (the time that the concert was due to start) for a spot check safety inspection. I think they got the message from the rather stessed look on my face and agreed to come back 15 minutes later once the concert was underway.

Contractors to work non-stop until May 2009

Today we announced that contractors will work without interruption to complete the Usher Hall project once this year’s Edinburgh International Festival is over. Here's the link to the national news piece:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7444321.stm

The Usher Hall project team made the decision to press ahead in collaboration with the RSNO and the SCO. we all thought it best that the contractor gets on and completes the job. Both organisations have been able to make alternative arrangements for their forthcoming seasons in order to allow the Usher Hall project to move ahead as fast as possible to completion. More details are available from their websites:

http://www.rsno.org.uk/cms/
http://www.sco.org.uk/

Over the past six months contractors have focused attention on the new wing, the basement and the podium. This has required considerable intrusion into the building’s structure which revealed unexpected deficiencies in the fabric of the building. As a result, there have been a number of time consuming changes to plans and additional investigatory work which has compounded delays.

You can see in the photo's above that the wing is now starting to take shape with the yellow shutters providing the support for the pouring of concrete. You can also see the amount of steel work that has had to be fitted to the the walls where the new staircase will be situated. This has been one of the challenges for us, as without the steel 'brace' the walls were proving too weak to support the new staircase structure. Another delay has been brought about by having to extend the basement corridor away from it's intended path - the foundations of the hall made this a near impossible task. This redesign will take until December to be constructed.

The focus now is on preparing the venue for this year’s Edinburgh International Festival.

Thank you for your patience while we complete the improvement of the hall.

The Basement

Here are three images of the works on the Cambridge Street side of the Usher Hall. They show very well how deep the excavation has gone down in order to achieve the new basement, which will provide a big increase in toilet and cloakroom provision. It was interesting to see the stone laid down by Queen Mary in 1911 so exposed against the construction works.

Our Vision

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page there are some fabulous computer generated images of the final building from LDN Architects. I've had them for a few years now but have only just worked how to put them on as a slideshow! I'll leave them here for a while until I work out how to embed them on the left hand side without appearing as the size of a fingernail or falling off screen altogether. These are the images that remind me it's all worth it in the end...

Project Update

Since the information outlined in the previous media articles was published we have been working through some of the operational implications with the Project Manager. As of last week the two national orchestras - RSNO and SCO - were both at the stage of publicising their respective seasons. However, at this point there was information that we could not get from the contractor relating to public facilities for the pre-Christmas period. The RSNO is waiting for this information prior to releasing tickets and the SCO has arranged for it's 3 pre-January concerts to play at alternative venues. Here is a news link from today's Scotsman:

http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Delays-to-20m-Usher-Hall.3980687.jp

The move of the SCO to other venues has freed up valuable construction time as there will still be a substantial amount of work to be be continued after this year's Edinburgh International Festival. We will do all we can to help them with the last minute switch and audiences can still buy tickets for the concerts from January 29th 2009 onwards. We are expecting information from the contractor at the end of April which will help the RSNO with it's planning and ticket sales.

Project Update

There were some interesting articles in today's media - The Herald newspaper, radio, Evening News - about the delays that I mentioned in my last blog update so I thought it would be useful to provide links to a couple of the pieces. They say it as well as I can so it's worth having a read!

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2100480.0.More_delays_hit_Usher_Hall_revamp_as_problems_discovered.php

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.2100415.0.What_lies_beneath_foundations_of_Usher_Hall_lead_to_setbacks.php

As you will see from previous photos the upgrading of the Usher Hall is progressing, and many areas are coming along well. After last year's festival the contractor took full control of the Hall - we are currently renting office accommodation from our neighbours, the Lyceum Theatre, as a temporary base. The contractor discovered the need to reinforce the foundations of the building with more underpinning (see previous posts) and provide additional support to some internal structures such as the circular stairwell (last post). This work means that the full project will take longer to fully complete but there is no concern at this stage over the use of the venue for this coming winter season by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. It will push back our 'official' opening, most likely to be Spring 2009. There are a lot of operational factors to take into account here and I'll keep you posted.

It will probably be the case that some temporary public facilities such as toilets and box office are put on site for the period of the Festival the Autumn season but we expect the hall itself to be operational. A planning team is being set up to ensure that the needs of the artists, orchestras and audiences are satisfied. The team that is managing and delivering the project is working through the implications of the revised programme of construction work.

Working on a iconic, Grade A listed concert hall was always going to present challenges and in the long run you will find it worth the effort!

Fixing a hole where the rain gets in...

...and stops my mind from wandering. Here are 2 pictures taken from what used to be the ladies toilet at stalls level on the south side of the hall (Grindlay Street). They show the demolition of the old triangular stairwell that took people to and from the Upper Circle, and is where we will have a new circular staircase to connect all three levels of the hall. This was always one of the key aims of the project as the old stairwell was designed to keep the masses separate from the glitterati of Edinburgh's Edwardian society. I don't think any survive now so we can all mix more freely.

The partial view of the yellow machine is a robotic demolition tool. It can be controlled to go into tight/awkward areas and blast away so that humans don't have to.

This area of the project has caused many headaches. The interior concrete wall proved to be in poor condition and would not support the structure of the new stairwell. A large amount of steel reinforcement has had to go in to the walls to provide the necessary strength and support, which has been costly and caused some time delays.

Views from the inside

Two views looking across the Upper Circle foyer area. There will be 2 new bars and cloakrooms in these spaces. We all think this is one of the best public spaces in the Hall and hope to use it for more functions and talks when we re-open.

Views from the inside

I said a few weeks ago that we were having a tour of the building. Well, we all got booted and suited and I now have some shots of what's happening inside the building. There is still a lot of demolition work going on to the stairwells. They are concrete walling the basement, and installing a lot of pipes and ducting to upgrade our terrible air-handling system (for those of you at Festival concerts prior to 2007 will know what I mean!).

The first one is taken looking down the Grand Circle corridor from the backstage access door on the Cambridge St (north) side of the hall. The second is looking down the Grand Circle corridor from the Grindlay Suite side. The workman is breaking through the wall to create the opening for the lift.

The Basement

This excellent photo was taken by John Neilson of Heery International. It was taken looking down from the roof on Grindlay Street and illustrates how the basement of the new wing is progressing. This areas will house spaces for food and drink storage, staff changing, plant equipment and IT/phone system. The basement has been dug all the way around the perimeter of the building now to create the space for all the new public toilets and cloakroom.

We are due to go on a site visit in a couple of weeks and I plan to get some photos of the work inside the hall to show you.

Merry Christmas

Disappointingly, Heery didn't manage to get the obligatory Christmas tree on top of the crane and we were missing a bit of festive bling. OK, it's huge and I am sure there are Health and Safety laws about that sort of thing, but all of us at the Usher Hall would like to wish our blog readers and customers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Alfred Brendel set to retire in 2008

Well, there goes one idea for the re-opening season! Here's a link to the Reuters article, plus a blog writer from Lithuania who says some nice things about the Usher Hall.

http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSN2061381320071120

http://violainvilnius.blogspot.com/2007/11/alfred-brendel-is-retiring.html

Of course, we all wish Alfred Brendel a happy retirement and are thankful for the many superb performances he gave here. I don't know if he's at next year's festival, but you can catch him at City Halls in Glasgow next year, if there are any tickets left.

The Usher Hall Crane

'nosy_neighbours' had asked what the big white tower was for (see comment on last photo). I presume the reference was to our crane. This is (mainly) for taking out materials from the internal demolition work and it will then be used for lowering the sections of the new circular stairwell and lift into the interior of the building. I had to go up to Edinburgh Castle to get a decent view of it. I knew my Historic Scotland membership card would come in handy!

You will notice two similar sized cranes in the background. We can't use the traditional T-shaped crane in the city centre because it would overhang surrounding buildings when it swings around (and you wouldn't want that!).

I did notice from up at the castle viewing platforms that there are a lot of cranes across the Edinburgh skyline at the moment.

Underpinning

Just a couple of pictures to show the level of underpinning that is needed to hold the new wing to the side of the existing building.

Festival over, work resumes

I am delighted to say that the 2007 Edinburgh International Festival (Usher Hall programme)not only happened, but happened in style. A monumental effort by our staff, the festival and the contractor went into getting the hall ready. With just a day to turn things around we managed to get to opening night on Friday 10th August and celebrate with a full house!

The Festival programme was amazing. My personal highlights were the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela (for their sheer exuberance and love of playing) and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (for sheer musical brilliance). We welcomed the best part of 40,000 people through the hall. To be honest, the hall was really showing it's age and we tried to make it look as nice as we could. The festival got in floral arrangements and went to town on posters outside. The St Petersburg Brass Quintet added to the party atmosphere as always. However, the toilets caused us more problems than usual - I found out during the festival that a while back we had our water supply pipe downgraded as part of a Council utility saving excercise. This meant we had a 20mm (yes millimetre) pipe supplying the building instead our old 65mm one. Hence, problem with water pressure and cisterns not refilling quickly enough. The efforts by our staff to make the programme work under difficult circumstances was incredible.

With the Royal Scottish National Orchestra rounding off the Festival, we then had 1 day to clear everything out of the hall to allow the contractor back in on Monday 3rd September. Which, if you ignore an old freezer stuck in the basement and half-ton marble bust of Beethoven, we did.

Work now resumes with more piling (see previous entries) and the continued dig of the basement area around the outside of the hall. The above photo is taken looking towards what was the box office entrance last week.

When you're in a hole...

...in our case, we keep digging. Here is the extent of the dig to provide the foundations and basement area for the new wing. Something like 300 tonnes of steel have been put into the ground to support the new structure, which are now hidden from view.

The internal backstage area on this (Grindley Street) side of the hall has now been demolished to make way for the new facilities - better dressing rooms for musicians, a dedicated education space and floors that actually connect at the right levels with the main public part of the building for better access!