Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Trinity College of Music, founded in 1872, moved its teaching into the King Charles Court of the Old Royal Naval College — Wren's riverside masterpiece — where its students practise under the painted halls. In 2005 it merged with the Laban Centre, the movement school descended from Rudolf Laban's institute, to form the only British conservatoire joining music and dance.
The Laban building in Deptford — designed by Herzog & de Meuron and completed in 2003 — is a translucent, colour-washed block beside the Creek that architecture students make pilgrimages to see. Between Wren's colonnades and the Swiss practice of concrete-and-colour, the conservatoire teaches in two of the most beautiful rooms in British education.
Field notes
- The Laban Building's façade is polycarbonate and coloured glass — it glows at dusk over Deptford Creek.
- Trinity's graded music exams, like LAMDA's, are a suburban institution across the country.
- Music students rehearse in King Charles Court; the Painted Hall is the occasional venue.
Notable connections
In brief — from the field guide
Music at Wren's Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich; dance in Deptford, in Herzog & de Meuron's translucent colour-washed building by the Creek. Formed by merger in 2005; the only conservatoire of its pairing.
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