This week marks the centenary of the death of one of our greatest theatre architects. Responsible for the London Palladium and London Coliseum, this amazing man also designed many of the UK’s most breathtakingly beautiful buildings. It was wonderful to see his work acknowledged in the national press with outstanding articles in The Guardian and The Stage.
Matcham died in Westcliff on Sea on May 17th 1920, but his legacy lives on in our nation’s magnificent theatres and if you’ve ever visited the London Coliseum, you may well have sat in one of Frank’s favourite seats!
Frank Matcham’s theatres include:
The London Palladium
The London Coliseum
The Hackney Empire
The Tower Ballroom, Blackpool
The Grand Opera House, Belfast
The Lyric Hammersmith (interior)
The Buxton Opera House
One of Matcham’s guiding design principles was that all seats should offer the best possible view of the stage and in total, this great man was responsible for the design of around 150 of the UK’s premier theatres. A full list of Frank Matcham theatres is available here.