OUR HISTORY
Named in homage to our iconic original home, the Old Diorama Arts Centre has a long and radical history supporting London’s creative ecology and communities in Camden.
In the 1970s, the original Diorama Arts Centre was formed in an empty building near Regent’s Park, occupied by a collective of artists. They made it widely known as a place for arts, crafts, theatre, concerts, raves, and more, as well as a hotbed of the best creative talent London had to offer.
The building they occupied had originally housed The Diorama which opened in 1823, It was a new and short-lived form of visual entertainment that provided painted scenes dramatized with lighting and other effects. The structure was a large polygonal brick building with a notable dome, set behind a row of terraced houses with a facade designed by John Nash.
In 1981 the collective became a registered charity, established with a mission to engage with the community by running projects and classes to benefit local people and the wider U.K. creative industries beyond.
In 1993, landlords the Crown Estate relocated the organisation to a new development close by in Osnaburgh Street. On this site the charity developed a well-known local cafe plus theatre, gallery and rehearsal spaces. This centre became the long-term home of many prominent artists, theatre groups, art therapy groups and disability groups. Subsequently (thanks to British Land) more sites were added at the nearby Euston Centre and the charity continued to flourish.
Diorama then was relocated to British Land's newly refurbished Regent's Place campus, as part of a Section 106 planning agreement. The new theatre space was gifted to Quicksilver Theatre Company in 2010, which became New Diorama Theatre, and continues as a thriving separate charity.
Diorama Arts Centre’s permanent home, a purpose-built studios complex at 201 Drummond Street, opened in August 2013 and our studios are home to a busy schedule of rehearsals, workshops, readings, castings, film and photo shoots, and events.
Now known as Old Diorama Arts Centre, in 2021, the 40th birthday of the organisation’s incorporation as a charity, ODAC re-opened, following an an extended COVID-19 related closure, under new leadership, and is beginning a new chapter, re-establishing and refining our purpose and programmes.