Recently I went to have a sneaky peek at the gargantuan new exhibition space down in Olympia. Over the years I’ve seen dozens of events there, and even attended a Vivienne Westwood fashion show, back when her partner Malcolm McLaren was alive — I remember him pacing up and down outside the venue beforehand, surveying the incoming crowd as though he were a Studio 54 doorman (“Does this one have to come in?” he said to an usher, pointing to a decidedly démodé guest).
Olympia is not going to be just an exhibition space, though — it’s still more than 18 months away from completion and is currently one of the biggest building sites in the city — but rather a cultural hub that will rival any other arts centre in Europe. It’s like a little city within a city, a citadel inside a citadel. The 14-acre estate is being completely redeveloped and will include a huge entertainment venue, exhibition space, four-screen cinema, 1500-seat theatre, a 550,000 square-foot office building designed by Heatherwick Studies (it’s all faux-Deco and municipal chic), two hotels, restaurants, landscaped roof terraces and a school for the performing arts operated by Alpha Plus Group with a Brit Kids partnership. There will also be a shedload of fancy shops, but what it won’t be is a glorified shopping centre.
