Join Mark Johnston, architect behind the exciting redevelopment of the Hyde Park Picture House, to hear about how Page\Park Architects approach regeneration projects in sensitive historic contexts. Mark will give a special behind-the-scenes look at the Picture House redevelopment and insight into some of the complex challenges that were overcome during the works.

Mark is a Senior Architect and heads up the Arts & Culture team at Page\Park Architects – an award winning architecture practice with studios in Glasgow and Leeds. Mark has a particular passion for historic cinemas and theatres, believing these venues are cornerstones of our towns and cities and must be protected. Mark has worked on various cultural redevelopment projects during his 10 years at Page\Park, and enjoys the inherent design challenges these projects present.

The talk will also include a special screening of Memory Picture Palace House, made by Canadian Artist Kasper Feyrer in 2024 in commemoration of our 110th birthday.

Shot on 16mm during HPPH’s recent restoration, the 37-minute film wrestles with the venue’s porous history, its physical footprint in an inner suburb of Leeds, and the city’s role in the cultural epoch sparked by the invention of moving image technology in the late 19th century.

Part reverie, part living tribute, Memory Picture Palace House traces a path through a building where experience and memory are continually transformed by the daily projection of films.