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Foundry in Shoreditch to make way for hotel
Miranda Bryant4 Feb 2010
One of London's most popular alternative arts venues and home to a large Banksy mural is to be demolished after more than a decade.
The Foundry in Shoreditch is to close within months to make way for an 18-storey hotel.
The gallery and pub — frequented by artists and musicians such as Gavin Turk and Pete Doherty — is on rented land owned by Art'otel.
Hackney council last night approved plans to pull down the building but said a decision had not yet been reached on whether the Banksy mural would be saved.
One of the Foundry's founders, Tracey Moberly, said today: “We weren't given any support or
acknowledgement by the council for what we put into the area and what's grown up around it.
“It's going to be a huge loss because there's no other space like it.”
Reader views (5)
I totally agree with Deborah. The Foundry, and other bars and pubs like this, are what make east london such a special and varied place. What with launching the careers of bands like the Libertines and Hot Chip, it should be a protected building(plus it looks pretty cool!). Philip and Jonathan, you are a bunch of old gits who only care about expensive hotels and care nothing about the fantastic underground music scene that originated here. Hackney council, please change your mind!
- James, Maidstone, Kent, 06/02/2010 19:37
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For all the concerns about the views of local residents, its telling that the objectors at the meeting only managed to only find one resident to object. And the majority of the support for the bar comes (as ever) from outside of the area.
This article is also very short on details. The Banksy will be relocated, as will the bar. (The Hotel managers have been in talks since last summer to relocate the bar.) Finally, the Foundry Bar was always scheduled to close around this time and really should have put more effort into this.
- Joel, London, Shoreditch, 06/02/2010 09:57
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As a local resident living very close to the site, I am delighted by this news. Locals are fed up being surrounded by bars and their problems, and want instead to encourage the nicer aspects of regeneration (shops, boutiques etc) which art'otel's customers will support. Despite its bohemian credentials, Foundry is primarily a bar, of which there are far too many in the area anyway.
Its main "contributions" to the area are alcohol and graffitti, both of which we need less of, so I welcome this proposed change.
- Philip Kenyon, London, 05/02/2010 13:01
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I won't miss this eyesore one bit. I love the East End (I returned from New York to be here again) despite, not because of, the Foundry. Shoreditch is vibrant because of beautiful artistic venues like the Tube carriages put on top of the building at the junction of Shoreditch High Street and Great Eastern Street, not because a bunch of dossers moved into a building that should have been pulled down years ago.
- Jonathan, East London, 04/02/2010 17:06
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How mad, but how typical of our corporate obsessed politicos (local or nationa), The Foundry is part of what makes Shoreditch so edgy and special, part of what makes people want to come and stay in the Area. In short if it wasn't for The Foundry and other such venues and outlets, nobody would want to stay in a Shoreditch hotel in the first place. These Hoteliers are are cooking the geese that lay the golden eggs, but what would the Hackney councillors care, no doubt it's all about gravy trains for them as they worm there way towards the bigger gravy train at Westminster
- Deborah, London, 04/02/2010 11:32
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