End of an era as Foundry’s lost to ‘cold, soulless’ development

Published: 11 June, 2010
by JOSH LOEB

IT was the end of an era this week when the owners of a bar and gallery that has been a favourite with artists, anarchists and bicycle couriers since it opened over a decade ago locked up the venue for the last time.

Jonathan Moberly and his wife Tracey, who ran The Foundry in Old Street for 12 years, handed the keys of the building to an agent for the site’s new owners, developer Park Plaza Hotels, at 5pm on Monday.

With the building slated for demolition to make way for a 17-storey, aluminium-clad tower called the “art ’otel”, Foundry staff and punters say the artists and political groups that used the venue as their base will have nowhere left to go.

Mr Moberly, who also helps broadcast the Foundry radio show on alternative station Resonance FM, said: “What’s really tragic is that the community breaks up. 

“One of our regular poets, Grassy Noel, comes into the Foundry and drinks pints of tea. He is an amazing, extraordinary poet – he’ll grab whatever’s going on and distill it into an almost Joycean torrent of words. 

“Where’s he going to drink pints of tea now? Where’s he going to perform?”

Tracey Moberly, an artist who has collaborated with comedian Mark Thomas, said: “What makes the Foundry come alive is that you have so many groups of people and activities colliding with each other. 

“You have upper middle class people colliding with really extreme left-wing groups. It’s fairly un-cliquey.”

She said she hoped the venue would find new premises somewhere nearby soon, but added: “We’re thinking seriously about getting a camper van and going around Shoreditch imposing on people.”

The Foundry, which is covered in graffiti including valuable Banksy artworks, made national news after the hotel plan was announced. In the 12 years since it was started, over 2,000 art exhibitions are thought to have been held there and it has cemented itself as the heart of the Shoreditch art scene.

As the last of the furniture was moved out on Monday, including a 16ft-long pew believed to have come from an East End synagogue that has long since disappeared, the mood outside the venue was melancholic. 

A graffiti tribute reading “RIP the Foundry” appeared on the side of the building during a “wake” held over the weekend, said one regular. 

“It’s just a condemned corner now,” commented Peter Wilson, a former barman at the venue.

Darren Coxson, from City Road, held bike courier meet-ups at the Foundry and benefit gigs for the London Courier Emergency Fund (LCEF), which raises cash for couriers injured on the capital’s roads.

He said the venue was “irreplaceable”, adding: “We all are looking around for another base which might be appropriate for us. There’s no where else with that vibe or that’s so central but with a big space outside. 

“The closure has had a really negative impact on our community.”

Earlier this year Mr Coxson, who founded the LCEF, warned “non-corporate” meeting places were being lost because of “the encroachment of cold, modern, seemingly soulless developments” in Old Street. 

A “guerilla garden” next door to the Foundry, which was created in 2006 by gardening activists promoting “the illicit cultivation of land”, is expected to be swallowed up by the art’otel development. 

However, the developers have undertaken to preserve two Banksy artworks that adorn the side of the building. 

Asked about the decision, Banksy is reported to have said: “It’s a bit like demolishing the Tate and preserving the ice cream van out the front.”