The Sage Gateshead

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The Sage Gateshead

The Sage
The Sage Gateshead viewed from central Newcastle
Coordinates	54°58′04″N 1°36′07″W / 54.9677°N 1.6020°W / 54.9677; -1.6020Coordinates: 54°58′04″N 1°36′07″W / 54.9677°N 1.6020°W / 54.9677; -1.6020
Type	Centre for musical education, performance and conferences
Opened	17 December 2004
Location	Gateshead Quays, UK
Construction cost	£70 million
Capacity	1,640 (Hall One)
Website	www.thesagegateshead.com

The Sage Gateshead is a centre for musical education, performance and conferences, located in Gateshead on the south bank of the River Tyne, in the north-east of England. It opened in 2004.

The venue is part of the Gateshead Quays development, which also includes the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

Contents 1 Origins 2 The building 3 Opinion 4 Gallery 5 Appearing artists 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Origins

The centre occupies a curved glass and stainless steel building designed by Foster and Partners, Buro Happold (structural engineering), Mott MacDonald (building services) and Arup (acoustics), with views of Newcastle and Gateshead Quaysides, the Tyne Bridge, and the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. The planning and construction process cost over £70 million, which was raised primarily through National Lottery grants. The contractor was Laing O'Rourke^[1]. The centre has a range of patrons, notably The Sage Group plc which contributed a large sum of money to have the building named after it. Sage Plc have helped support the charitable activities of The Sage Gateshead since its conception. The venue opened over the weekend 17 – 19 December 2004.^[2]

The Sage Gateshead is also available as a conference venue: for example it hosted the Labour Party's Spring conference in February 2005.^[3]

[edit] The building

The Sage Gateshead contains three performance spaces; a 1,700-seater, a 400-seater and a smaller rehearsal and performance hall, the Northern Rock Foundation Hall. The rest of the building was designed around these three spaces to allow for maximum attention to detail in their acoustic properties. Hall One was intended as an acoustically perfect space, modelled on the renowned Musikverein in Vienna.^[4] Its ceiling panels may be raised and lowered and curtains drawn across the ribbed wooden side walls, changing the sound profile of the room to suit any type of music.^[5] Hall Two is a smaller venue, possibly the world's only ten-sided performance space.^{[citation needed]} The building's concourse was designed to be used for informal music-making. Below the concourse level is the Music Education Centre, where workshops, community music courses and day-to-day instrumental teaching takes place.

The building is open to the public throughout the day^[6]. Visitors can see rehearsals, soundchecks and workshops in progress. It has five bars, a brasserie, the "Sir Michael Straker Café", and "The Barbour Room" – a multi-purpose function room which holds around 200 people. There is also "ExploreMusic": a technologically well-equipped musical branch of Gateshead public library, stocking books, and current magazines covering all aspects of music, a CD library with listening posts, and computers with free internet access, subscriptions to music websites, and music software.^[7]

[edit] Opinion

There has been popular debate surrounding The Sage Gateshead. There is a broad base^[who?] of local support for the centre, including cross-party backing from local government. Conversely, some^[who?] feel that along with the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art it represents an invasion of highbrow culture that is irrelevant to most of the population,^{[citation needed]} and that the money might be better spent on other projects, such as improving Gateshead's residential areas^{[citation needed]} and High Street.^[2] However, the money made available to the project build via Lottery Grants would not have been given for such general improvements to the area.^{[citation needed]} The majority of local people from Gateshead and Newcastle feel as if The Sage Gateshead is very much part of their community and often attend classes and performances in the building as well as using it as a local facility.^{[citation needed]} Many schools have been involved in performances at the Sage^{[citation needed]}.

The building itself has its admirers and detractors. While many people^[who?] hold it to be a fine example of Norman Foster's design, others draw comparisons with a large slug. Gavin Stamp, writing as "Piloti" in Private Eye's Nooks and Corners column, suggested that the structure resembles a "shiny condom".^[8]

The Sage Gateshead has won a number of awards, including the Local Authority Building of the Year in the 2005 British Construction Industry Awards and the RIBA Award for Inclusive Design.^[9]

[edit] Gallery

The Sage Gateshead on a cloudy day	Entrance	Interior view	Light on concourse
At night

[edit] Appearing artists

A number of influential artists have performed at the Sage, including The Acanto Quartet, Northern Sinfonia, Mitsuko Uchida, Angela Hewitt, Imogen Cooper, Martin Roscoe, Peter Donohoe, Elizabeth Watts, Emma Kirkby, Anthony Rooley, James Brown, George Clinton/Funkadelic, Lesley Garrett, Nancy Sinatra, Shawn Colvin, Goldfrapp, David Crosby and Graham Nash, The Cinematic Orchestra, Robert Plant, Morrisey, Van Morrison, Herbie Hancock, John Scofield, Gilberto Gil, Mc Coy Tyner, Grace Jones and Elbow.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• The Sage Gateshead