Project Info:
The Palace of Arts was built as a temporary structure in 1929 as part of the North East Coast Exhibition held in Newcastle upon Tyne that year. Following the exhibition the other ‘palaces’ were taken down leaving the Palace of Arts as the only structure to survive in the city’s new Exhibition Park
Having housed a museum of engineering and latterly a military vehicle museum the Grade II listed building sat empty from 2006. In 2014 Wylam Brewery, the North East’s leading independent craft brewery, set about looking for a new home having outgrown their original site. The iconic Palace of Arts was chosen.
The building comprises a series of rectangular galleries arranged around a central octagonal, domed hall. A state of the art 30BBL brewery occupies the rear half of the building, while the brewery tap, offices, a commercial kitchen and a flexible foyer space are arranged around the central hall which operates as an 800 capacity venue.
A series of new vertical slot windows and glazed doors were sensitively introduced into the precast concrete external walls opening up views of the park, while internally spaces were stripped back to expose the original brick, concrete and steel frame construction. Externally, car parking and servicing provision were sensitively accommodated and a beer garden integrates into the park setting.