The Royal College of Music (RCM) has been awarded a 2025 Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) London Award, celebrating the College’s landmark redevelopment by John Simpson Architects.
The prestigious RIBA London Awards honour architectural excellence across the capital with John Nahar, RIBA’s Regional Director of London, praising the winning projects for reflecting a ‘breathtaking display of variety, creativity, and purpose’.
The £40 million More Music transformation revitalised the Royal College of Music’s historic campus, creating dynamic new spaces and facilities, fostering an inspirational environment for our global community of students and visitors to create, research and perform music. Highlights of the works included a full renovation of the ground floor including a new café space, The Carolean, development of the Cotes-Burgan Atrium at the heart of the College, a Performance Hall and Performance Studio, and a new home for the Royal College of Music Museum.
Hire our award-winning spaces today! Contact VenueHire@rcm.ac.uk to speak to one of our friendly team, and explore our newest spaces in more detail below.
Our light and bright refreshment space, The Carolean, can host up to 280 people for a standing event and overlooks the stunning Cotes-Burgan atrium. The adjacent 1851 Courtyard is a stylish outdoors venue full of original features, well-situated with easy access to The Carolean should the weather let you down.
The Cotes-Burgan Atrium is at the heart of the College, its high glass ceiling flooding the space with lots of natural light. Although not available to hire exclusively as a venue, it leads to the Performance Hall, Britten Theatre and RCM Museum (to name a few of our stunning venues), as well as the cloakroom and bathrooms. Guests are sure to be in awe in this bright and contemporary space with historic features still intact.
The Performance Hall features beautiful wooden lattice panelling encasing state of the art acoustic panelled walls. A large screen can fill the entire backdrop of the stage, ideal for accompanying artwork or promotional material, and the stage is the perfect size for chamber recitals or seminars.
The Performance Studio is both an intimate concert venue and home to the world leading Performance Laboratory, a unique training facility that can simulate different performance environments. With three wall-sized projection screens and a 64-speaker system, along with video and audio recording and playback functionalities, this showstopper space helps to train performers from the performing arts to public speaking with interactive virtual audiences.
Housing the earliest known guitar and stringed keyboard instrument, as well as iconic portraits of Joseph Haydn and Farinelli, this multi-level and fully accessible space makes a beautiful and unique intimate concert and private dinner venue.
