Walters & Cohen won a two-stage invited competition to design a memorial recital hall to Yehudi Menuhin in the grounds of his internationally renowned school at Stoke d’Abernon in Surrey.
The two main elements of the building are a recital hall for 350 people and a wing of music teaching rooms and rehearsal studios. The two wings are linked by a double height foyer that opens onto the outdoor performance area. The two-storey hall does not dominate the site but grows out of the surrounding landscape, flowing with the contours of the site; the use of natural materials reinforces this. The building encloses a grassed amphitheatre at the heart of the scheme; a quiet, contemplative space protected from the noise of the nearby M25 motorway.
The project involved successful negotiation with the local planning authority on a sensitive site in the Metropolitan Green Belt and in May 2001 the scheme was granted full planning approval. This project was never built but in 2005 a new recital hall was completed by Burrell Foley Fischer.
