Plans for a new international concert hall in Wimbledon are still moving forward, following the death of the project’s lead architect, Frank Gehry, who passed away last month at 96.
The scheme, first revealed in 2019, carries a certain weight. Not just because of its scale, or its ambition, but because Gehry’s name was attached to it. A purpose-built, 1,500-seat concert hall, set on the council-owned Hartfield Road car park, pitched as a serious cultural anchor rather than another flexible events venue.
Merton Council granted the Wimbledon Concert Hall Trust an exclusivity period to develop the site, and both parties have now confirmed that Gehry’s death has not derailed those plans. The intention, they say, is to proceed closely with the architect’s studio and creative team.
Andrew Judge, the council’s cabinet member for housing and development, described the collaboration with Gehry as a privilege. The language is careful and respectful. He said the project would continue with the support of those who worked alongside Gehry on the design.
The proposed building is meant to do more than host classical concerts. Jazz and rock are part of the projected programme. There is talk of a roof garden, with flexible spaces for community arts initiatives. It is a building imagined as an ambitious future landmark.
Funding is expected to come from private investment. Naming rights are on the table. Wimbledon, with its transport links and global recognition thanks to tennis, was deliberately chosen. The argument is that the area already carries cultural associations. This would formalise them.
Anthony Wilkinson, chair of the project and founder of the Wimbledon International Festival, has long argued that the hall could help turn the town into a cultural quarter for south west London. Something with its own gravitational pull.
Local groups are cautiously supportive. The Wimbledon Society has said it hopes the venue will lift the borough’s cultural standing and bring more people into the town centre. Footfall matters. So does perception.
Gehry, of course, knew a thing or two about perception. His titanium-clad Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, completed in 1997, remains the shorthand for architecture’s power to reframe a city. He once described the Wimbledon project as a knockout. Concert halls, he said, were his favourite commissions. The people. The challenge. The music.
“I love music more than life itself,” he told Wimbledon Time and Leisure Magazine. When someone came to him with a concert hall, his eyes lit up.
That enthusiasm is now part of the project’s inheritance. The question is whether it can be carried forward with the same conviction. For now, at least, the answer from Wimbledon is yes.
Photo Courtesy Wimbledon Concert Hall Trust