Old Diorama Arts Centre

The Old Diorama Arts Centre began in the nineteen seventies as a radical act of occupation. A collective of artists took over an empty building near Regent's Park, transforming a neglected space into a vibrant hub for crafts, theater, and concerts. This original site had been built in eighteen twenty-three for the Diorama, a pioneering form of visual entertainment where spectators watched massive, hand-painted scenes manipulated by light and mechanical effects to create the illusion of a changing landscape. The name of today's center acts as an homage to that nineteenth-century venue and the artistic spirit of the squatters who first reclaimed it.