Leicester City Centre designated Leicester's new cultural quarter, and is already the site of the Leicester Creative Business Depot(built on the old Leicester City Bus depot and keeping the initials) and the Athena. The LCB Depot opened in July 2004, and by the time of its first birthday had let 37 of 55 units, with talk starting of finding an additional site. Opposite the Athena, a new flagship £60 million Curve Theatre, Leicester, designed by Rafael Vinoly Architects, started construction in 2005, on a site that has been long-disused. It is planned to be ready for handover 2007 to the Haymarket company, who
Rafael Moneo his creations, at the same time as combining aesthetics with functionality, especially in the airy interiors that act as impeccable settings for great works of culture and the spirit." Rafael Moneo José Rafael Moneo Vallés (born 9 May 1937) is a Spanish architect. He won the Pritzker Prize for architecture in 1996 and the RIBA Royal Gold Medal in 2003. Born in Tudela, Spain, Moneo studied at the ETSAM, Technical University of Madrid (UPM) from which he received his architectural degree in 1961. From the Davis Art Museum at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and the Audrey Jones Beck Building (an