The Clore Music Studios provides a dedicated building for the practice and study of music and drama at New College, Oxford University. Set within Oxford’s Central Conservation Area, the stone-clad building is scaled and detailed to complement the materiality and rhythm of neighbouring buildings, with a clearly contemporary expression that gives it a confident presence in the city.
Arranged over three levels, the building accommodates a large rehearsal room at ground level, with two medium-sized studios for chamber music above, alongside individual practice rooms for solo and duo rehearsal. Internally, oak wall linings provide warmth and acoustic quality, while externally the building is defined by a refined palette of Portland stone cladding and bronze anodised aluminium metalwork.
Client: New College Oxford
Dates: 2013—2019
Architect and Landscape Architect:
John McAslan + Partners
Consultants
Arup
Bartin Wilmore
Sandy Brown Associates
Hoare Lea
Austin Newport Group
Oxford Archaeology
Renaissance Associates
Context and form
The robust, stone-finished volume is linked to the adjacent Saville House by a glazed entrance and circulation space. This transparent connection clarifies the relationship between new and existing buildings, creating a legible sequence of arrival and movement.
The form of the building is partly shaped by archaeological remains to the rear: seventeenth-century earth ramparts constructed during the English Civil War. Generous glazing to the front and rear of the ground-floor rehearsal room allows views through the building to these historic features, enhancing awareness of the site’s history while creating an animated frontage to the street. In doing so, the Clore Music Studios balances the needs of performance, place and heritage within a compact and carefully resolved urban intervention.
