Daimler Powerhouse
Imagineer’s home is the Daimler Powerhouse, a new £2.5million creative hub in Coventry.
The Daimler Powerhouse is available for artists and creatives to develop new work in custom-built surroundings.
Facilities Include:
The purpose-built Daimler Powerhouse Creation Centre is a dedicated, fully accessible space for the production of outdoor and site-specific work. Facilities include:
- Rehearsal spaces with sprung dance floor
- Studio spaces for artists
- Aerial rig
- Vertical dance wall
- Construction Space (large scale)
- Making spaces
- Recording facilities
- Outdoor rehearsal spaces
- Fully accessible office spaces including hot-desking
- Meeting rooms
- WiFi
- Parking
Download more details about the Daimler Powerhouse Spaces and Facilities.
To enquire about booking, email matt@imagineerproductions.co.uk
Resident Companies
As well as Imagineer, the Daimler Powerhouse is home to resident companies Talking Birds, Open Theatre Company, Highly Sprung and Media Mania.
Talking Birds
Since 1992 Talking Birds has been producing thoughtful, playful, resonant, mischievous and transformative meditations on people and place. Our work, which we call Theatre of Place, is characterised by a distinctive blend of humour, music and visual flair in venues both conventional and unconventional across the UK and internationally – from the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank, to Kilkenny Livestock Mart; from a cavernous underground car park in Scarborough, to a decommissioned hospital in Coventry, to a giant aluminium whale which swallows up audiences one at a time.
Open Theatre Company
Open Theatre has been developing work with Young People with Learning Disabilities (YPWLD) through non-verbal physical theatre for over 30 years. We use non-verbal physical theatre to explore young people’s creativity. We work with the same young people over months, sometimes years, leading to a positive impact on learning outcomes, capacity to learn, confidence and sense of self, and the roles they can play in the world.
Highly Sprung
Highly Sprung is the UK’s leading physical theatre company making work for and with children and young people. We create outdoor and indoor performances that tell stories through movement, gesture and dance. Stories inspired by humanity, science, and the complex world around us. We also train artists in physical theatre and run projects in primary and secondary schools here and across the world.
Media Mania
Media Mania is made up of youth and community workers, professional artists, freelancers and volunteers that support and develop people through creative arts. We believe that creative arts are a powerful tool that give people hope and bring people together in a positive way.
Redevelopment
The Daimler Powerhouse is the former site of car-manufacturer Daimler. Imagineer had a vision to make this old industrial complex into a creative making space fit for the 21st century.
After many years of planning and fundraising, redevelopment of The Daimler Powerhouse began in June 2020 with support from Coventry City of Culture 2021.
The building provides much-needed dedicated space for artists to create mainly outdoor and site-specific work, and for resident creative companies to deliver innovative programmes of education and training for children and young people.
The re-developed Daimler Powerhouse is a place where artists, engineers, architects and other creative industries can collaborate to make new work and where new and emerging practitioners can find professional support.
The £2.5million creative hub has been funded through the Cultural Capital Investment Fund which is resourced from Coventry City Council and the Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership’s Growth Deal.
The Wigley Group, which owns Sandy Lane Business Park and have undertaken the development work, have contributed an additional £350,000 as well as agreeing a highly-discounted 20-year lease on Daimler Powerhouse, as well as a neighbouring building, as part of the redevelopment. Additional funding has been raised from The Foyle Foundation, Medwell-Hyde, The Garfield Weston Foundation and The May 29th 1961 Charitable Trust.
Capital Project Supported By:
History
The Daimler Building was one of the first car factories in Britain and is an important part of the history and heritage of Coventry.
The Daimler site was destroyed during the Blitz and the building now as the ‘Powerhouse’, is all that remains. As local historian David Fry says: ‘To industrialists, The Daimler Building is as important as Coventry Cathedral’.
From a Cotton and Weaving Mill in the 1860s through to its position in the automotive industry as the Motor Mills in the late 1890s and later Daimler works in the mid-1900s, the Daimler Powerhouse has a history of bringing together engineering and ingenuity. The site itself, the Daimler Powerhouse – built in 1907 to power the factories and foundries on site – survived the Coventry Blitz in November 1940 and through this new regeneration will continue to be a place for inventiveness, excellence and creativity.
History of the Daimler Powerhouse
1860 – Mass unemployment in Coventry due to the collapse of the silk ribbon trade
1863 – first big Factory built on the Daimler site to provide employment for starving weavers
1896 – The factory is turned into Harry Lawson’s The Motor Mills
1898 – The Motor Mills becomes the Daimler Works the first car factory in the UK
1904 – Daimler’s 600 employees produce 25 cars a month
1907 – Daimler Powerhouse – An electric power station for Daimler Co Ltd built and up and running
1910 – Daimler’s 4000 employees produce 200 cars a month
1940 – Daimler Powerhouse survives significant bombing of the Daimler site
1940s – Coventry Climax move on to the site
1946 – UK’s First Forklift Truck designed and manufactured, The Coventry Climax ET199
1959 – 1965 – Coventry Climax powers four F1 World Champions
2010 – Imagineer moves into the Daimler Powerhouse
2020 – Work begins on the capital redevelopment of the Daimler Powerhouse
2021 – Building completion March 2021 with an official launch August 2021 as part of the UK City of Culture 2021 celebrations.
Albert Smith of Coventry worked in engineering and manufacturing from age 16. Part of Albert’s role included accompanying inspectors working for large companies and ministry departments to the Power House at Sandy Lane to check the stability and design features of the fork lift trucks, which they had ordered, before they were dispatched. Listen to his reminiscences:
Former worker Albert Smith reminisces about his time working at the Daimler Building during the 1960s
Stay in Touch
Join our mailing list and keep up to date with our latest news
Collaborate
Find out more about how your organisation can be part of our ambitious work
It made such a difference to have a proper space to rehearse in…I know this contributed to allowing some exciting, strong and original work to emerge.
The resource it has created is inspiring.
The Daimler Powerhouse project is one of the most significant elements of the Coventry 2021 programme and legacy.
