The owner of a West End theatre where a ceiling collapsed onto the audience said last year the venue had suffered years of benign neglect.
Investigations are continuing into why about 10 square metres of plaster from the Apollo Theatre plummeted onto the stalls below on Thursday night, leaving 80 people injured.
Previous owner Andrew Lloyd Webber warned 10 years ago that the building was in a "shocking" state and recommended it be demolished, reports said.
Excess water during a downpour may have caused the collapse, after forecasters confirmed an abnormally high concentration of rain, hail and lightning in London that night.
Nica Burns, the co-owner and chief executive of Nimax Theatres, which runs the building in Shaftesbury Avenue, said in an interview last year that it had a budget of 2.45 million pounds to restore its five West End playhouses.
That was funded by a restoration levy on tickets at the theatres, which the company said was spent entirely on upkeep and maintenance work once tax was paid.
Speaking to Theatres Magazine, Ms Burns said: "Before we could start on the improvements, we had to address the damp. Water attacks the building from above and below."
In 2000, Lloyd Webber, who sold the Apollo to Nimax in 2005, told the Times: "The Apollo in particular is a shocking place.
"I suggested that both it and the Lyric should be knocked down and replaced by top-quality modern theatres."
The composer and musical theatre impresario complained that his plans for a black-box auditorium inside the existing plasterwork had been opposed by English Heritage.
When it listed the building in 1972, the public body cited the Apollo's "richly ornamental shallow domed ceiling on pendentives" as one of its stand-out features.
More than 700 people were inside the Apollo - which was 45 minutes into the National Theatre's performance of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - when members of the audience started screaming as it appeared parts of the ceiling caved in.
Some of the injured were taken to hospital on London buses.
Most were discharged quickly, having been treated for cuts and bruises.
Performances at the Apollo have been cancelled until January 4.
London Mayor Boris Johnson said Westminster City Council and the Society of London Theatre had assured him all safety checks for the West End's historic theatres were up to date.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said criminal involvement has been ruled out and the investigation would be handled by the council
