Saving the Electric Cinema

By 1997, as well as falling into disrepute, the Electric Cinema in Portobello Road was falling into disrepair. It had been closed for 4 years until local property developer European Estates and architect Gebler Tooth Architects, the team behind the Travel Bookshop (the real one not the one in the film Notting Hill) wondered if it could be rescued. It needed more than just restoration to make it viable. Cinemas today depend on moviegoers buying extras around the price of a ticket but outside the Grade II* listed auditorium, the Electric didn’t have enough space even for decent toilets.  Over the next 4 years Sasha Gebler of Gebler Tooth exhumed the Electric’s history and negotiated with RBKC planners for a mixed use scheme that would combine the next door shop 191B Portobello Road. In 2000 he achieved the planning consent for a combined cinema, club and restaurant that would secure the cinema’s commercial viability. Support and encouragement of RBKC planners Roy Thompson, Andrew Patterson and Mark Price, licensing officer Barry Croft and David Stabb of English Heritage was also instrumental. Sasha discovered that Peter Simon (founder of Monsoon) was the owner of 191B and approached him with the project.  Which was a happy coincidence because Monsoon apparently started life outside the Electric with Peter Simon selling Afghan coats. He subsequently bought out European Estates, retaining Gebler Tooth and stumping up the £2m to restore the Electric and build the combined scheme with contractor Gilmac. The cinema was restored and reopened for business on 21^st February 2001 run initially by City Screen (Clapham Picture House et al). Nick Jones (Soho House) took over the lease shortly after introducing interior changes with Sasha and interior designers Michaelis Boyd and Ilse Crawford. In the process Sasha’s original idea for a wide screen rising out of the stage migrated into the remarkable expanding screen developed with Unusual Rigging. The next door site 191B provided space for WCs and modern air conditioning plant for the cinema as well as an upstairs club Electric House and the restaurant Electric Brasserie. Under Soho House stewardship they have all been a great success and the Electric Cinema is now the undisputed favourite movie experience in London.

Links
Sunday Times ‘The Rediscovery of London’s Electric Cinema’
Screen Daily ‘London’s Electric Cinema set to reopen’
Architect’s role: Profile in local mag The Hill
Article on Electric Cinema in The Hill
Ladbroke Association’s history of the Electric ‘Back after the Break’

Electric Cinema project at Gebler Tooth Architects web site
Gebler Tooth Architects site

Tags: architects chelsea, architects kensington, Architects notting hill, architects rbkc, Listed buildings