Film studios are, of necessity, adaptable buildings but the Gainsborough Studios, in Hoxton, London, have proved more versatile than most. In their film-production heyday, when Hitchcock made movies here, they served as everything from mad professor's laboratory to railway station, to 19th-century manor house to mermaid's lair. At various other times the building has also been a power station, avant-garde theatre and whisky store. But now it is preparing for another incarnation: a luxury residential development.
At the start of its life, this enormous canalside brick construction wasn't a film studio, but an electrical power station for the East London railway line, built in about 1900. It entered the movie business after the first world war, when American studios were taking over impoverished London facilities to expand their empires. The property caught the eye of Jesse Lasky, head of Famous Players, who noted it was "a location where heavy fog would collect even when the rest of London was in bright sunshine". It was swiftly converted into a two-stage studio with workshops and offices, and began turning out films in 1920. Among the studio's first employees was a sign painter named Alfred Hitchcock. Four years later it was sold to Michael Balcon, who formed Gainsborough Pictures, using the building as one of his two London studios (in those days it was known as Islington Studios).
Under Balcon's guidance, Hitchcock shot his first suspense thriller, The Lodger, there, as well as his 1926 masterpiece, The Lady Vanishes (using one train coach and plenty of back projections). Also to be found passing through the Islington compound over the next two decades were former music hall stars such as Will Hay, Gracie Fields and the Crazy Gang, horror veteran Boris Karloff, Third Man director Carol Reed and, later, James Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Stewart Granger, for the shooting of Anthony Asquith's Fanny By Gaslight. At the start of the second world war, however, the building's huge chimney was judged a liability in the event of an air raid, and production began to wind down, finally grinding to a halt when the studio was sold in 1949.
For the next 50 years the building languished in obscurity but, as Hoxton's fortunes have risen, so it has become a hot property once more. Its combination of post-industrial urban chic, vogue-ish location ("the birthplace of BritArt" as the sales brochure puts it) and rich cultural history has proved highly marketable. Indeed, for a derelict building it has been remarkably busy of late. Last summer, to both theatrical and architectural acclaim, the main turbine hall was transformed into a temporary extension of the Almeida Theatre, where Ralph Fiennes led productions of Shakespeare's Richard II and Coriolanus. The architects knocked through a floor that had been added in the 1960s (when the space was a whisky store), to restore the hall's original triple-height volume, and put a massive raked concrete stage in the centre, surrounded by scaffold seating. Otherwise, the scarred interior was unchanged. "At one time, we had to work around a film crew who had turned part of it into a boxing arena for Guy Ritchie's film Snatch," recalls architect Roger Watts of Haworth Tompkins. "There was also a fashion show by Alexander McQueen just before we went in." It has hosted music awards ceremonies, cinema nights and contemporary music performances. On New Year's Eve it was the venue for a party for 3,000 people, featuring four Hitchcock-themed rooms.
Under the new scheme, parts of the studios, including the large turbine hall, will be demolished later this month, though the main studio building will be retained. Around it will snake clean, elegant residential and office blocks, including a 12-storey tower sliced vertically by aluminium fins - an echo of the power station's original chimney, which is likely to become a conspicuous feature of the area. Buildings are mostly brick and steel, with plenty of glass and large X-beams supporting the lower floors - in other words, a rectilinear ultra-modern style which is sure to attract smart young punters. There will also be a nine-story wooden building facing the canal, a tribute to the original wharfside architecture.
"It's like taking a bit of Covent Garden, and putting it up in a brand-new environment," says Steve Marshall, of architects Munkenbeck + Marshall. (Marshall also worked on the restoration of the late Denys Lasdun's nearby Bethnal Green tower block Keeley House.) "The planners were keen to put a very strong landmark here, so it makes sense to have a building that says goodbye to you as you leave Hackney and says hello to you as you come from the north."
For those who resent the rampant gentrification of this part of London, the project is likely to become a prime target for scorn, though there are several other similar conversion schemes under way in the area. As fashionable as the area has become, complaining about its fashionability is even more fashionable. The critics' only consolation is that it could have been much worse. About five years ago, planning permission was granted to turn the site into a bingo hall, surrounded by car parking. That was replaced by another scheme for 100 luxury flats arranged around a private courtyard, which was also abandoned. This project will achieve a much higher density - about 300 flats - but makes several concessions to the public
"The way the planners worked was exceptional," Marshall explains. "They said: 'If you keep the film use and you really promote this part of London as a media focus, we will allow you to build to a higher density, in line with the recommendations of Lord Rogers's Urban Task Force.' Unlike most planners, who would say six storeys was too high, they were saying, 'Go up to 12 storeys but give us a lot more that can be shared by the community'".
There will be the proportion of affordable housing (44 units) now required in new housing developments and a public walkway along the canal but, most importantly, the ground floor is given over to commercial space, which it is hoped will be occupied by film and media companies, most likely pre- and post-production companies - and a link with the site's heritage. A more explicit link is the 6.5 metre-high public sculpture planned for the central courtyard: a semi-abstract bust of Hitchcock's head rising from the ground. Whether it turns out to be a symbol of future cinematic regeneration or a kitsch finale for a development that knows its selling points remains to be seen.
