Friday 25 September 2026 5:56 am  |  Updated:  Thursday 24 September 2026 1:40 pm

Olympia reborn: Inside a £1.3bn makeover for a 140-year-old icon

By: Andrew Busby

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Bringing a Victorian building into the modern age was a labour of love, but the method was “deceptively simple”, Olympia CEO Michael Volkert tells Andrew Busby

Opened in 1886 as a Victorian temple to spectacle – trade fairs, Vivienne Westwood’s first runway show, Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix under the same cast-iron roof – Olympia has spent 140 years being remarkable and mostly invisible: wheeled out for the exhibitions and locked away in between. Now, courtesy of Yoo Capital and DFI, and a masterplan from Heatherwick Studio and SPPARC, she’s been reborn, and some.

The 14-acre site has gained 2.5 acres of new public streets, walkways and terraces. Its Grade II-listed halls, still capable of holding 20,000 people, never stopped working throughout construction. Alongside them sit two new hotels, the newly opened British Airways ARC, a 3,800-capacity music venue run with AEG Presents, plus a 1,575-seat theatre opening in 2027 – London’s largest to open in almost 50 years. Once complete, the site expects around 10m visitors a........

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