Curzon Cinema Hoxton, London

Curzon are an independent cinema chain focussing on repertory and arthouse films. Their new venue in Hoxton, East London, is a three-screen cinema with associated bar, cafe and restaurant, over a total floor space of 735 m2.

Central to the design is an a triple-height foyer space which connects the cinema entrance at street level to the screens, located at the lower floor.

Accessed via a bar, restaurant and café located at ground level, visitors enters the cinema passing large light boxes. A staircase leads down into a lounge, from where the cinema screens can be reached.

Materially, the project has a reduced monochrome palette, to reduce visual distraction and create a focussed environment. The flooring, which carries through all main spaces, is a custom designed dark grey terrazzo with small inserts of coloured aggregate. The entrance and foyer walls are made from porous through-coloured white acoustic panelling and the ceilings are made from black acoustic foam. In the restaurant the walls are rendered with a warm grey mineral clay render which appears solid and heavy and absorbs sound.

Inside the cinemas, the focus is on film, and the material and colour palette are reduced with heavy dark curtains to the walls, dark ceilings and carpeted flooring.

The design aims to support Curzon’s agenda of focus on film, via a choice of raw simple and reductive materials and accessible spaces.

Team: Marianne Mueller, Olaf Kneer, George Barer, Vicente Hernandez, Vid Žnidaršič

Photography: Paul Riddle

Lighting Design support: Lichtvision, London Berlin Hong Kong