Beacon, Bradford City of Culture 2025

The RIBA-organised international competition seeks proposals for an ‘iconic travelling performance space’ to host performances, installations, and live events during Bradford’s stint as UK City of Culture in 2025.

The ‘Beacon’ project sets out to ‘celebrate Bradford’s cultural heritage and to reflect its diverse, cosmopolitan communities’. The winning concept will be expected to feature ‘sustainability at its heart’ while also promoting ‘meaningful interchange between communities’.

RIBA architect adviser for the competition Tumpa Husna Yasmin Fellows, co-founder and director of Our Building Design, said: ‘The Beacon is a competition for arts and performance spatial design, seeking responses through the lens of de-colonial architectural practice, design methods and proposals.

‘Speaking to the global impacts of climate change and to a desire to create more equitable public spaces by facilitating the voices of under-represented and local diasporic communities, in the design, build and use of Beacon; widening access to the arts, architecture and design.’

Bradford 2025 creative director  Shanaz Gulzar said: ‘It’s crucial that our year as City of Culture reaches every corner of Bradford district and Beacon will be just one of the ways we do that.

‘This new peripatetic venue will be an incredible space for people to get together, to show off the creativity of our district as well as taking  spectacular events and performances to a wider Bradford audience.’

Bradford, in the foothills of the Pennines around 14km west of Leeds, was an international centre of textile manufacture in the 19th century. Today it is a major tourist and retail centre and a UNESCO City of Film.

The city’s population is expected to rise to 584,000 by 2022 and Bradford Metropolitan District Council is planning to deliver around 30,000 new homes and become a zero carbon district by 2038.

Greig & Stephenson won planning permission to overhaul a shopping area at the heart of Bradford city centre two years ago. Bradford’s National Science and Media Museum picked AOC for a new £2.9 million suite of Sound and Vision Galleries last year.

Bradford was announced winner of the UK City of Culture 2025 competition in May last year, defeating rival bids by County Durham, Southampton, and Wrexham County Borough. Bradford is the first city in Yorkshire to be awarded the title.

The latest competition seeks proposals for a moveable venue to be located in parks across the district during 2025, enabling larger-scale events to take place in the heart of local communities.

The winning entry will be selected by a panel of judges that includes representatives from Bradford 2025, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), and the Bradford City Council. An overall winner is expected to be announced this autumn.

In addition to the architectural competition, Bradford 2025 has also announced a £3 million cultural capital fund for existing venues to improve access and upgrade facilities in the build-up to the City of Culture year. There will be two grant schemes: small scale of up to £5,000 each and larger scale for a minimum of £50,000.