"A civic building, built to last." That is how Sheila O'Donnell describes the thing she and John Tuomey have made in Stratford, and it is about as much as either architect will say for themselves. The building can do the rest of the talking.
On 9 July, Sadler's Wells East — the dance house that opened in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in February 2025 — was given a RIBA National Award.
The awards have been handed out since 1966 and are meant to take the temperature of British architecture, the best of what gets built and what it says about the way we live. This year 32 buildings across all four nations made the list, spanning every sector and scale. Sadler's Wells East is one of them.
The judging panel called it "a hugely confident new arts facility with a bold architectural design, that not only meets very exacting functional requirements, but successfully creates an icon here for local people". Plenty of new buildings are bold; fewer are built with the neighbours in mind.
The venue is the first public building to open at East Bank, the cultural quarter rising on the Olympic Park alongside the BBC's music studios, V&A East, UAL's London College of Fashion and UCL East.
Sadiq Khan billed it as "a gamechanger for dance" when it opened. What sits behind the ribbon-cutting is more concrete: a fully flexible 550-seat auditorium, six dance studios, a restaurant and bar, and The Dance Floor, a performance space open through the day where anyone can drop in for a free lunchtime class.
That flexibility has been put to work. In under 18 months the building has staged 50 productions and been reconfigured, at various points, into a skatepark and a nightclub — the kind of shape-shifting that only happens when a building is designed to allow it.
Britannia Morton, executive director and co-chief executive of Sadler's Wells, said: "We are over the moon that our marvellous building Sadler's Wells East has been recognised by RIBA for its architectural excellence."
She praised O'Donnell + Tuomey for responding wholeheartedly to the brief of a purpose-built theatre for dance, and said the result was "both a brilliantly functional building that supports the nation's arts infrastructure and a beautifully designed space that is an inviting and welcoming space to experience dance".
The building, she added, "has been a revelation, particularly through its open foyers and its participatory spaces that continue to bring more people into the wonderful world of dance".
Sir Alistair Spalding, artistic director and co-chief executive, was blunter about why the building was needed. "Sadler's Wells East was a much-needed mid-scale space in the dance ecology and has enabled us to share the very best work from up and down the country and internationally with more people," he said.
"O'Donnell + Tuomey's ingenious design has enabled artists to scale up their ambitions and play around with different formats for their work... Crucially, it's also a world-class space for artists to test ideas and create new and exciting work for everyone to enjoy."
O'Donnell, for her part, kept to the plain register that runs through everything the practice says about the project. "We were asked by our clients to make a welcoming building that was ready for work," she said.
"Now the building is buzzing with all kinds of dance activity, night and day. The architectural expression results from the rational arrangement of parts and the rhythmic measure of structure. A civic building, built to last."
Sadler's Wells East is in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, as part of East Bank. It houses the Rose Choreographic School and Academy Breakin' Convention, which offers the UK's first free Level 3 Diploma in performance and production arts specific to hip hop.
