Ray Gorbing's Story

Ray Gorbing, Architect of the Gordon Craig Theatre
Ray Gorbing performing in The Mikado

Ray Gorbing was the Design Architect of the Gordon Craig theatre. Here he talks about the challenge of overcoming noise from outside the building.

 The location of the site, near the railway station, and adjacent to a major road gave rise to a certain amount of noise. This was compounded by the fact that the Town Centre was directly under the flight path to Luton Airport. To overcome the noise factor, we used cladding and roofing panels of glass reinforced plastic to provide the necessary insulation. I decided that the panels should be in a fairly lively colour to offset the general greyness of most of the buildings in the Town Centre. I’m afraid that my choice of colour was not very popular with some people and the building was dubbed “Ray’s Orange Box””.

“The complex was completed and opened to the public on November 3rd 1975. On November 7th, I must confess that I felt a little nervous singing on stage with the Lytton Players who had been given the honour of being the first amateur group to perform there. Fortunately all went well, and we didn’t hear one car, train or plane.

Ray Gorbing, Design Architect of The Gordon Craig Theatre

No Comments

Start the ball rolling by posting a comment on this page!

Add a comment about this page

Your email address will not be published.