Hans Zimmer buys BBC’s Maida Vale Studios for £10.5 million as part of group
The partners plan to preserve the west London studios' storied history by giving the recording studios a "multi-million pound refurbishment" and maintaining the building's facade
Hans Zimmer is part of a group buying BBC's legendary Maida Vale Studios for a reported £10.5 million.
BBC confirmed the sale of the illustrious west London studios to Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, co-chairs of Working Title, a British film studio under Comcast's Universal Pictures, with award-winning composer Hans Zimmer and his business partner Steven Kofsky. The group plans to preserve Maida Vale's history and retain its purpose as recording studios, maintaining the building's facade and giving the studios a "multi-million pound refurbishment". They aim to create a not-for-profit educational facility and add jobs to the local community.
BBC did not disclose the price of the sale, though NME reported the site was listed for £10.5 million in December 2022.
"This was a place of revolutionary science in the service of art, this was a place that inspired you to give your best, where music was performed around the clock and art was taken seriously", Zimmer said of Maida Vale in a press statement. "...This was the place that kept a struggling musician like me from giving up."
"My work with Working Title gave me my career in Hollywood, where Steve Kofsky became my partner, and he and I made sure to drag the work from as many Hollywood films as possible back to Britain", he continued. "So now I want to close the circle: make Maida Vale Studios a place that inspires, teaches, technologically serves the arts and humanity, and gives the next generation the same opportunities I was given: to create and to never give up."
BBC closed Maida Vale Studios in 2018, which it shared plans to relocate to facilities in east London's Olympic Park after redevelopment in 2022. The East Bank opening date has since been pushed to 2025. BBC had been considering closing the iconic site since 2007, when it was deemed "wholly unsuitable for the 21st century".
Maida Vale Studios was first opened in 1909 as a roller-skating rink, later becoming the home of the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the 1930s and hosted the innovative BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It hosted notable performances from the likes of The Beatles, David Bowie, Jeff Mills, Richie Hawtin, Led Zeppelin, Jay-Z, Radiohead, Little Mix and The Fall in its storied history. As of May 2020, Maida Vale Studios earned Grade II Listed status, protecting it from redevelopment.
