Hove Town Hall

Sadly, the Hove Town Hall is an incredibly ugly building. I live pretty much next door to it and I really do think it’s an eyesore.
Ugliness aside, Hove Town Hall has everything you could possibly want from a town hall. Parking Permits, paying your council tax, you name it, it’s there! There’s also a citizens advice bureau in the building which is aways incredibly busy — there’s always a massive queue of people waiting for it to open at 8am.
What a lot of people didn’t realise about Hove Town Hall is that it is also a music venue. I have had the pleasure of performing there with my choir, Brighton Goes Gospel on many occasions, the last of which being Christmas 2014, which was sadly the last ever concert/​performance to happen there as the council have decided to close this fantastic venue and turn it in to offices. Great. Brighton and Hove sure does need a hell of a lot more offices…*cough*
Any way I do think it’s a great shame that they are closing it as a venue, I can only hope the decision is some how reversed, but I doubt that will happen.

Hove Town Hall is a festival of the early 1970s, a mirrored, faux-​wooden parade of concrete and angular features that don’t do much to soften the blow of your parking fine. It looks inside like a once-​grand hotel gone to seed, with the smoked glass looking onto overly polished walnut accents on the concrete walls. These bits of concrete look like a cast of real wood, which is definitely, definitely better than unadorned concrete. Nevertheless, it’s still, ahem, bare concrete.
Even the lighting looks like it’s been around since back in the day, with yellow gels casting a weird golden glow over everything. It’s as if you’ve taken the wrapper off a caramel Quality Street and held it in front of your eyes. It’s worth going here just for the pure authenticity of it — they really don’t seem to have updated anything since it was built, so it’s a living historical monument to the age of bizarre buildings.
A word of counsel — if you do have to go here, for whatever reason, and I hope it isn’t as unpleasant as many of the reasons you might pitch up here (parking, housing regulations…), but if you do — don’t leave out a visit to the loo. That be-​mirrored fairground attraction will stay with me for some time to come.

As the other guys said this place is hugely diverse. I once received an award for my youth team winning a local league so award ceremonies are held here. My brother used to do amayeur boxing here losing a couple of fights before he retired. Plus I have watched an English attempt at WWE wrestling which I thoroughly enjoyed as a boy.
With many different things going on and on the numbers 1, 2, 5, 5a, 5b and 49 bus routes it is easy to get to. Check out the website for more details.

From the limited knowledge that has filtered through my dad to me on the subject of architecture, I believe the Town Hall to be a post-​modern, 60s style design. Which I think essentially guarantees a certain level of functionality and ambition in the social ideas behind it, as well as a slightly brutal concerete ugliness.
Hove Town Hall (HTH) is a great place to come for local information on pretty much anything from medical to tourist.
I have worked here a number of times, catering for events, and I managed to see the vast range of things that happen here. Kickboxing on Fridays as well as private and corporate functions.

From Swine Flu to mega parties…
I have been to Hove Town Hall three times. Twice I was attending something called a «Mega Party», which was where the 600+ students from my language school had immense fun in a Hawaiian-​themed disco. The venue is huge and could accommodate our massive group, but it did feel a bit like an American prom, rather than a nightclub.
The other reason I went to the town hall was to pick up Swine Flu medication for my infirmed friend. This time it was like walking onto the set of a zombie film, which I admittedly really liked.
What I am trying to get at here is the diversity of the town hall. Gone are the days of town meetings — they may happen, but I think Hove is a little too populated even for the Town Hall to accommodate everyone, but it is good to see it is still getting its use. It plays host to a number of events (I think they even had boxing, or wrestling), but when it’s necessary, it can be a place where community service is reassuringly provided, as was the case during the Swine Flu saga (I won’t call it an epidemic).

The original Town Hall at Hove was built in 1882 to the designs of Alfred Waterhouse, best known for Manchester City Hall and the Natural History Museum in London. This splendid red brick gothic edifice, with its 110ft clock tower, was a well-​known landmark until a fire in 1966 severely damaged much of the fabric. A picture of the old Town Hall can be seen at:

After several years of debate as to whether to rebuild within the remaining fabric or build a completely new hall, a competition was held for a completely new replacement building, which was won by John Wells-​Thorpe, of Gotch & Partners.
The new building, completed in 1974, is very much of its time: the structure is covered in unpainted grey-​brown rough-​cast concrete panels, with large expanses of tinted glass. It’s not quite brutalist in style, thanks to the detailing on the panels, and the extensive planting around it softens the harder edges. But it’s still a love-​it-​or-​hate-​it sort of building architecturally. I think it’s mellowed rather well with time, and its low profile and set-​back facades don’t try to compete with the surrounding, older buildings.
The building houses an information point (branded ‘Citydirect’) for the City Council’s services, open 8.45−16.30h Monday — Friday. It also has various function and meeting rooms, which through the year host many diverse events, such as the Sussex Beer & Cider Festival held annually in March.