Skate, the iconic annual ice rink at Somerset House, is as festive as mince pies, chunky knitwear and the scent of cinnamon and nutmeg.
As it reopens on 14 November, Londoners will swarm to the festive spectacular to skate, shop and stuff themselves with champagne and chocolate fondue. Somerset House is the heart of Christmas and, come to think of it, it was the heart of summer, too, with Film4 Summer Screen’s outdoor film series, which this year included a special screening of The Wife, introduced by Glenn Close herself. The capital’s largest architectural sleeping beauty has also become a hub for art, fashion, music and food, hosting everything from London Fashion Week shows to that blockbuster Valentino exhibition. So what is it about Somerset House that makes London’s most creative pleasure-seekers flock here?
This vast complex, first designed for George III’s growing civil service and naval administration in 1775, constructed in phases and later used as a tax office and car park, was given over to Londoners as a place for culture and entertainment in 2000. It now gets the same number of visitors — 3.2 million a year — as the Southbank Centre across the Thames.
‘We’re the new kid on the block,’ jokes director Jonathan Reekie, sweeping an arm around the Grade 1-listed buildings that have served as a film set for Goldeneye, Sherlock Holmes and Downton Abbey. The pop-up ice rink, the first of its kind in London, was ‘the first big public intervention here’ in 2000. The first of many gigs, by Lambchop, took place in 2001, followed by the premiere Film4 summer movie screening in 2005.
Somerset House always had connections to art: the North Wing originally housed the Royal Academy of Art and the Royal Society, and has been home to the Courtauld Institute of Art since 1989. Its first director, Duncan Wilson, oversaw the opening of galleries housing the Gilbert silver collection and items loaned from the Hermitage, as well as the spectacular River Terrace.
Since taking on the role in 2014, Reekie has expanded Somerset House’s purview. ‘There is a move towards a much more interdisciplinary conversation for artists, which came out of the digital revolution,’ he says. ‘Audiences are looking for different, more interactive experiences.’ He has continued to put on gigs and film screenings and dazzling exhibitions devoted to photographer Miles Aldridge and — currently — to the genius of Charles M Schultz’s Peanuts cartoons. But he also mounted Björk Digital, the Icelandic oddball artist’s attempt to let an audience experience an album in virtual reality, and Recording in Progress, during which PJ Harvey recorded her ninth album in a box made of one-way glazing, so she couldn’t see the audience observing her.
That box was designed by Something & Son, one of many creative businesses that swarmed into Somerset House in 2016 along with artists, designers and film-makers. The place already had blue-chip creative companies occupying offices: the British Fashion Council, Dance Umbrella and the Hofesh Shechter Company. ‘But what was missing were the artists and makers themselves, the people at the coal face,’ says Reekie. So he opened up the basement of the 19th-century New Wing, alongside Waterloo Bridge, as well as arches under the bridge, to create studios for creative types, many of whom might otherwise be priced out of central London. They share ideas and facilities such as laser cutters and 3D printers. ‘That’s a robot someone built so you can virtually tour an art gallery after dark,’ Reekie says as we dash past a studio.
Fashion designer Gareth Pugh is based here, as is Unmade, a collective that customises commercial clothing and has pieces in MoMA and the V&A. One resident artist, Eloise Hawser, is making a piece to complement the Schultz exhibition; another artist, Ruth Proctor, has created a ‘durational artwork’ to augment this year’s ice rink.
Skate Lates club nights will return to the rink, while those seeking a more sedate evening can now avail themselves of the vastly improved gastronomic offering at Somerset House, in the dining rooms of Bryn Williams and Skye Gyngell’s Spring. These enhance the visitor experience while helping fund the more cutting-edge activities: Somerset House receives no government subsidy. Plans for the future include an exhibition by fashion photographers Hanna Moon and Joyce Ng on multiculturalism next year. The pedestrianisation of the roadway between the North Wing and St Mary le Strand church is ‘a gleam in the eye’.
At the heart of all the activities is the evocative history of the building: the watergate that originally opened directly on to the Thames; the beautiful Nelson and Stamp staircases; the ‘Deadhouse’ that runs under the courtyard, named for the Tudor graves below. And its sweet-spot location perhaps explains why creative energy collects here. Not long after he joined, Reekie read an Evening Standard report stating that development to the east had shifted the capital’s centre of gravity. Apparently, Somerset House is the centre of London.
Illustration by Ifan Bates
