The Stage

The Stage is a new 2.3‑acre mixed‑use development in Shoreditch built around the rediscovered Curtain Theatre. Its centerpiece is a 37‑storey residential tower by Perkins+Will, housing 412 apartments with luxury amenities. The sleek tower and its lower podiums enclose a vast new public plaza, reportedly one of Shoreditch’s largest and are flanked by two contemporary office blocks “The Hewett” and “The Bard”, 221,000 sq.ft. combined, plus a stepped restaurant/bar pavilion. The project is crisp and contemporary with floor‑to‑ceiling glazing and metal cladding to the facade giving the development a modern industrial character. The Bell Phillips’ Building 4, a pavilion framing the plaza, uses corrugated aluminum panels as a subtle nod to Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre and to Shoreditch’s post‑industrial heritage. The old Victorian railway viaduct has been repurposed as a green promenade and pocket park, and new pedestrian routes cut through the block, knit­ting The Stage into the public realm.

The design explicitly celebrates the site’s history. Beneath the plaza sit the exposed 16th‑century stage foundations of the Curtain Playhouse, 14 × 5 m brick walls where Shakespeare’s company once performed and a new Museum of Shakespeare, by Perkins+Will, is built above them. Visitors can stand on an internal glass floor at the original stage level, looking down at the archaeology. The museum’s architecture is theatrical, its corrugated facade with polished and perforated panels, literally evokes a folded stage curtain, even incorporating perforation patterns of nightingales and larks, inspired by a ceramic bird whistle found during site excavartions. A gently sloping planted roof is cut by stepped seating that faces the plaza, forming an amphitheatre for public performances. As Perkins+Will note, the scheme weaves together built layers from several centuries gathered round a public plaza to create the largest open space in Shoreditch. Bold engineering solutions were also required, the constrained site demanded deep triple‑level basements and a top‑down construction sequence for the tower. In sum, The Stage’s striking glass‑and‑metal forms, theatrical details and integrated public realm give it a unique visual identity that both honors and reinterprets the Curtain Theatre’s legacy.

Architect: Perkins+Will
Aluminium systems and QUALICOAT powder coating: AMS
Facade Contractor: Alliance Facades
Main Contractor: C J O'Shea