Haworth Tompkins announces the completion of NT Future, an £80m refurbishment of the National Theatre on London’s South Bank. Opened in 1976, the NT is one of Britain’s most important 20th century buildings, and arguably the masterpiece of architect Sir Denys Lasdun. NT Future equips the National Theatre to sustain its position at the forefront of theatre, while regenerating the building to address a radically changed urban context.

The National Theatre was designed to be welcoming, and openness lies at the core of NT Future. Audiences will benefit from the Dorfman Theatre (formerly the Cottesloe). Learning groups of all ages will be received in the new Clore Learning Centre. Foyers have been refreshed, and extended with an NT-run riverside café and bar, while landscape has been regenerated around the site. Meanwhile, the backstage workshops – perhaps the biggest factory left in central London – will offer a new engagement with the public both through greater visibility from the street and an internal public viewing gallery. Since Lasdun’s building was completed, the public river walk has been extended, Waterloo has been regenerated, and the South Bank has become a new centre for London. NT Future s the National Theatre at the heart of this transformation.

NT Future has had a long development. Haworth Tompkins was appointed in 2007 to write a Conservation Management Plan for the building, in collaboration with the London Borough of Lambeth, English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society. This approach created detailed understanding of Lasdun’s architecture as a foundation for the NT Future proposals. The resulting changes include a new production building, the Max Rayne Centre, to the south of the NT; reconfiguration of the Cottesloe Theatre to create the new Dorfman Theatre and Clore Learning Centre; opening up of the north-east corner, formerly a service yard, to address the river walk with a new riverside bar and café; remodelling of the main entrance; transformation of landscape and terraces; and refurbishment of the foyers. NT Future gives the National Theatre new spaces for education, design, digital production, and workshop assembly. Sustainability, d on work by environmentalists Atelier Ten, will be greatly strengthened. Public attitudes to Twentieth Century architecture are changing fast. NT Future aims to make Lasdun’s greatest building accessible to a new generation, while enabling the NT to develop their role at the forefront of world theatre.

The scheme’s lynch-pin is the Max Rayne Centre, a new production building to the south of the NT that houses a state-of-the-art painting workshop, production offices, and a studio for designers, as well as departments relocated to enable change elsewhere in the building. Clad in aluminium fins and crumpled steel mesh, the Max Rayne Centre is designed to complement rather than replicate the NT’s masonry language, harmonising with Lasdun’s austere orthogonal forms. Its west-facing balconies enable the NT to address Waterloo Bridge and Upper Ground, while a glazed facade to the east opens up the painting workshop to passers-by.