The name of the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, will always have resonance for those of us of a certain rock'n'roll age. It was a regular stop on the tour circuit for all the bands of the 1970s, still crops up on gig lists (Nils Lofgren is there at the end of the month), and has been a favourite venue for the obligatory live concert recording, with Procol Harem, Caravan and Family among those who laid down some fine tracks in the building. Even Bucks Fizz recording their live album there (in 1991, pop-pickers) cannot diminish the memory.

This past week Croydon Council unveiled its plans for the revamping of the early 1960s building, promising to preserve the admired acoustic of the 1800-seater auditorium in a development programme that also embraces Croydon College and the School of Art that numbers David Bowie, Malcolm McLaren, John Rocha and Noel Fielding among its alumni. Employing the familiar vocabulary of our times, Councillor Timothy Godfrey said: “This will bring about a cultural renaissance in Croydon, breathe new life into Fairfield Halls and transform College Green into a thriving quarter where people want to go out in their free time."

Councillor Godfrey's iteration of what the former director of Glasgow's Year as UK city of architecture and design in 1999, Dejan Sudjic, has called the Edifice Complex, is far from restricted to elected members. Many is the leader of a national arts organisation I have seen animated beyond any previous experience of their enthusiasm at the prospect of guiding visitors around their new home. It happened again this week as Kenneth Osborne, head of finance at our national orchestra, revealed the fine facilities at the new RSNO Centre attached to Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

In the same week we have also seen the launch of the public campaign to meet the shortfall of £1.9m between the £4.6m already secured and the £6.5m required to build canalside headquarters for the National Theatre of Scotland in Glasgow, with well known alumni of our newest national performing arts company lending their support. In tomorrow's Sunday Herald Life magazine you can read a full explanation of why this new home for the "theatre without walls" is to rejoice in the name Rockvilla, which the company must have been delighted to discover was previously attached to a school and a church in the area, but was now available for use.

For those of us united by our romantic view of the Fairfield Halls, Croydon, it was however bound to immediately call to mind the much-loved song (Don't Go Back To) Rockville, from Reckoning, the second album by American band REM. One of the more straightforward of the group's back catalogue, it was written (some time before it was recorded) by bassist Mike Mills, and addressed to his then girl-friend Ingrid Schorr, a student at the University of Georgia in Athens. She had apparently been summoned home to Rockville in Montgomery County, Maryland, when her folks discovered she was neglecting her studies to hang out with a rock'n'roll band. Many years later her identity was discovered and Ms Schorr was moved to correct a couple of inaccuracies in the song, particularly about Rockville itself. It could almost be a play, and equally successfully be set in Croydon.

Did any of this run through the minds of Laurie Sansom and his colleagues at the NTS when they alighted on the name? Or were they just keen to name the home that the body was supposedly never going to have before someone suggested Dunroamin'?