We undertook the complete internal and external refurbishment of this Grade II listed Art Deco cinema. The cinema is an iconic building in the middle of Muswell Hill town centre. As a consequence there was much local interest in how the works were progressing; and so keeping the local community informed was important.
The programme was 34 weeks in total, but we delivered the programme over three phases, to enable the cinema to remain fully operational throughout. As the project progressed we also detected and safely removed asbestos. Phase One, which took place over six weeks, included the refurbishment of Screens 3 and 4 plus the front-of-house areas. Phase Two, again over six weeks, included the refurbishment of the auditorium in Screen 1, the foyer, bar and restaurant. The final Phase took 22 weeks and included creating two new independent cinema screen pods within the Circle Balcony of Screen 1, as well as the refurbishment of the Stalls within Screen 1. The construction of the screen pods was quite demanding because of the Listed building status of the walls and ceilings. This was the first time that such a design had been developed and constructed in a UK cinema.
As the cinema is in the middle of the town centre, and is surrounded by residential and business premises, it was important that we carefully programmed in the works and the deliveries to site, to minimise disruption and noise.
The client’s objective is to provide comfort and luxury hospitality in their cinemas. We delivered this through the fit-out, which included feature ceilings and lighting, bespoke joinery, hard and soft floor finishes, as well as acoustic floors, walls and ceilings, and full redecoration.
