CN visits The Pelligon to find out how the London venue’s huge glass roof evokes ‘the cathedral effect’ – the idea that high ceilings can stimulate ideas, creative thinking and the feeling of freedom.
Broadwick Group has transformed the 700sqm Canary Wharf space, formerly known as East Winter Garden, into a slick blank canvas for event organisers.
Re-named The Pelligon in a homage to its creator, renowned architect César Pelli, the 1,000-capacity venue was originally built as the sister to New York’s Winter Garden.
The venue’s original interior has been replaced by Broadwick, aiming to give clients more flexibility. Among the changes include laying a black rubber surface on top of the old art-deco-style marble floor, as well as adding two spiral staircases allowing quicker access to the mezzanine.
Broadwick Live director Simon Tracey tells CN: “What we’ve tried to do is update it so it’s a blank canvas, so it allows us as many different types of activity coming into the space, but also make it as easy to use as possible.
“Uniquely for London venues, you can literally open the front doors and drive a car from the street straight into the venue. If you can do that, you can pretty much do anything else.”
Cathedral effect
First introduced by Edward T Hall in the 1960s, the cathedral effect suggests that low ceilings, such as chapels, tend to bring on feelings of confinement, while high ceilings inspire a feeling of freedom.
Broadwick Group managing director for spaces and innovation, Elisa Chiodi, tells CN that the Pelligon’s cathedral-like glass roof and soaring ceilings can physically and psychologically inspire creativity and better thinking.
The Pelligon’s 27-metre glass dome welcomes in floods of natural light, illuminating the main hall which can accommodate up to 400 people.
Says Chiodi: “The research says that our brain gets more relaxed and open to creativity with very high ceilings. Recently there have been studies done in the user experience field which compared people working in low ceiling rooms like offices or traditional conference rooms, versus those working in high ceiling offices, and they found that the latter had more creative results.”
CN also heard from Vibration Production, which Broadwick acquired in 2022.
Vibration head of production operations Niall Spierin says: “When we went in there 18 months ago, we inherited all the production equipment that Canary Wharf Group had left. We upgraded a few bits, but it was nice to take all of that away and now we’ve got a brand-new production install.
“We had to have a real think about what we were doing with the lighting. For most of our other venues, the main space is windowless, so the lighting choices there differ massively from The Pelligon where you’re dealing with sunshine coming through the glass roof during a daytime event.
“We had to do some testing and make some informed decisions on what profile lighting we’re using for the stage to ensure that even if it was bright, we were still getting enough light from the profile lights to get a nice, clean stage wash.
“We’ve been able to have a lot of fun with the design because the roof is so high and it’s such a feature, we’ve installed lights along the ledges. This can not only light the room but also light the roof at the same time.”
Due to lighting limitations when sunlight enters the venue, Vibration has installed a high-resolution LED wall as part of its package. The full technical production setup consists of:
- L’Acoustics PA and Dante audio network
- Shure Axient Digital RF system
- Green-GO comms system
- Intelligent lighting package of Robe Esprite, Robe Spiider, Robe Painte, Robe LEDBeam 350 & Chauvet Colorado Panel Q40
- Abesen Polaris Pro 3.9mm LED wall
- EXE Rise rigging package
“The creative production design means it’s versatile and adaptable,” says Spierin. “It’s perfect for product launches, conferences, award shows, hybrid events and private parties.”
