Lead architect shortlist announced after centre granted immunity from listing

Eight practices including OMA, Heneghan Peng and Allies & Morrison have been shortlisted for the redevelopment of the Southbank Centre after it was granted immunity from listing for five years.

The other finalists are Bennetts Associates, Eric Parry, Feilden Clegg Bradley, van Heyningen & Haward and Grimshaw. The winner will be announced in the autumn and will be asked to work up two proposals.

The first is for the £43 million refurbishment and renewal of the Hayward Gallery, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, which have had little investment since they were built in the 1960s. Management wants to bring them up to the standard of the neighbouring Festival Hall.

The second is a more ambitious project to transform the whole area which would reclaim little-used parts of the undercroft and create a new square.

This would fulfil the next stage of the Rick Mather masterplan for the 8.5ha site, which envisaged the insertion of more retail and catering units, new landscaping and an external lift. Mather is also on the jury.

Heritage campaigners have reacted with alarm to the news, which coincided with architecture minister John Penrose’s decision to turn down a fourth request for the complex to be listed, over-ruling English Heritage.

Instead he approved the Southbank Centre’s own application for a certificate of immunity from listing for five years on the basis that no new evidence had been provided.

EH said it was “very disappointed” and Henrietta Billings, senior conservation adviser at the Twentieth Century Society, branded it “absolutely ridiculous” that the complex was not considered listable.

“The immunity from listing leaves us worried about the future of these distinguished brutalist buildings,” she said.

“We are happy for innovative temporary structures to pop up during festivals but we would be concerned about massive permanent extensions.”

A spokeswoman for the Southbank Centre said it was writing a conservation management plan in consultation with the Twentieth Century Society, EH and Lambeth council to “better understand both the significant elements of the architecture and how the full potential of the site can be realised as envisaged by the original architects”.