Southbank Centre and the Festival of Britain’s legacy

Unlike the nationalistic overtones of the impending Festival of Brexit, the 1951 Festival of Britain championed creativity, design, innovation and science and gave a young generation of architects, planners and creatives a huge platform.  It was incredibly ahead of its time.

By all accounts, post-World War II Britain in the 1940s and early 1950s was a grim, grey and colourless place.  Six years of bombing, air raids and then subsequent debt and austerity left much of the country feeling depressed and disillusioned and rationing remained in place long after the end of war including the much-dreaded state-produced ‘National Loaf’ of bread which was fortified with vitamins and calcium in an attempt to make up for other nutritional deficiencies in the typical daily diet (rationing finally came to an end in 1954 and the loaf was abolished two years later).

Whilst unthinkable today, London was rundown, dirty and scarred with bombsites and many of its buildings were blackened as a result of air pollution.  The now-upmarket North London suburb of Hampstead was at the time, an affordable enclave for artists, writers and creative types and the areas just south of the River Thames around Waterloo and London Bridge were industrial wastelands. 

The initial idea for the Festival of Britain was thought up by The Royal Society of Arts in 1943 who were keen to hold an event to commemorate the centenary of The Great Exhibition of 1851 (held at The Crystal Palace – then situated in Hyde Park) and to raise national morale after the trauma of the war.  The Labour government’s Herbert Morrison soon took charge of the idea and decided that the core focus of the festival should the arts, architecture, science, technology and industrial design.  It was also agreed that there should be no politics at the festival – either explicit or implied.  As a result, Labour-led initiatives such as universal health care and housing for the working class were excluded.  Morrison would go onto serve in Clement Atlee’s government as Foreign Secretary and later become the Leader of the Opposition.  He was raised in South London and was an alumnus of Stockwell Primary School; he was in good cultural company as some 50 years later a certain David Jones (or in future, ‘Bowie’) would also attend the same alma mater. 

There was significant opposition to the idea from the political right and Winston Churchill, in particular hated the idea, labelling it “a state-sponsored jamboree” and “three-dimensional socialist propaganda”.  However, Morrison and his team eventually got the project over the line and the experienced and dynamic left-leaning newspaper editor Gerald Barry was appointed as Festival Director.  He described the Festival of Britain as “a tonic for the nation” and the festival billed itself (albeit, more long-windedly) as “one united act of national reassessment, and one corporate reaffirmation of faith in the nation’s future”.

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Postcards of the South Bank festival site showing the Dome of Discovery, Skylon and Royal Festival Hall.

The Festival of Britain involved events and displays taking place all over the country during 1951 and it is thought that over half of Britain’s then-population of 49 million took part in some way.  The centrepiece of the festival was the regeneration of the South Bank site near Waterloo in Central London.  The area was run-down and predominantly industrial and the festival would see the creation of a brand new public space and a walkway along the River Thames, showcasing the principles of international modernist design – a rarity in London at the time.  South Bank was to stage three large, multi-facetted ‘core’ exhibitions, ‘The Land’, ‘The People’ and ‘The Dome of Discovery’.  The latter was a huge aluminium dome with a diameter of 111 metres designed by the architect Ralph Tubbs and designed to house an exhibition championing British exploration and innovation.  It soon became an iconic London structure and a nationwide symbol of the festival.  The Dome of Discovery was almost certainly a significant influence on the Millennium Dome, now The O2 Arena. 

Another radical new landmark created especially for the festival was Skylon; a futuristic-looking steel tensegrity tower over 90 metres tall that appeared to ‘float’ above the ground.  Situated next to the Dome of Discovery on the stretch of the Thames between Hungerford Bridge and Westminster Bridge, it also quickly became synonymous with the festival and was extremely popular with the public, given the interest in space exploration in the early 1950s.  Having said that, a common jibe at the time was that “(Skylon) had no visible means of support – just like the British economy”. 

Clockwise (from left): 1.) An aerial view of the main South Bank festival site, 1951. 2-3.) Skylon and a view of the site from across the River Thames. 4.) Festival signposts. 5.) A close-up of the Skylon structure. 6-7.) Inside the Dome of Discovery and the dome at night.

Atlee’s Labour party would unexpectedly lose the autumn 1951 snap general election and Winston Churchill’s new Conservative government begin immediately tearing down the majority of the Festival of Britain’s structures, which they saw as symbols of socialism (Churchill’s first official act as Prime Minister was to clear the South Bank site).  These included the iconic Dome of Discovery and Skylon both of which were sold as scrap to a metal dealer in Canning Town.

However, perhaps the two most successful ventures of the Festival of Britain remain to this day; the Lansbury Estate in Poplar, East London and Royal Festival Hall on South Bank.  The ‘Architecture’ element championed what became known as ‘Festival Style’, incorporating international modernism with traditional English quaintness and the Lansbury Estate in East London which had been badly damaged by bombing was identified as a site for regeneration.  The philosophy behind the design of the new estate was that it should be low-density and consist of several ‘neighbourhoods’ – with each one including the various amenities that an area needs to thrive, such as pedestrianised shopping areas, covered markets, churches, old people’s homes and pubs and restaurants, linked by walkways. The Lansbury Estate today, now stands in the shadow of Canary Wharf but it remains very popular with residents.

Royal Festival Hall was the first in a new generation of post-war public concert halls in London and was one of the first venues to be acoustically designed using scientific principles.  The project was led by London County Council’s chief architect (and leading proponent of modernism) Robert Matthew who assembled a team of talented young specialists including architects Leslie Martin, Edwin Williams and Peter Moro, as well as furniture designer Robin Day, his wife textile expert Lucienne Day and acoustic consultant Hope Bagenal. The vision of the hall and its numerous wide, open foyers was for it to “become a space for all” and not to include segregated bars and lobbies for different ticket holders, as was the case with most of the concert halls of the previous century. The auditorium itself was radical too; designed democratically so that it had “no bad seats”, cantilevered boxes resembling “open drawers” and unusually, it was located on the building’s upper floors – an early 1948 sketch described it as “the egg in a box”.  

Royal Festival Hall in the 1950s and the iconic publicity poster for the festival.

Built predominantly from reinforced concrete (particularly in vogue with modernist architects at the time), this was combined with more luxurious materials such as polished wood and metal, white limestone and glass.  The generous use of glass was intended to connect the building to the communal terrace spaces outside and its white limestone exterior was chosen to deliberately contrast with the then-blackened city surrounding it.  There were some radical touches with the interior furnishing too; the now-famous ‘net and ball carpet’ that runs through the foyers and floating staircase was created by Peter Moro and Leslie Martin – partly inspired by oscilloscope sound waves (and also an apple that was on Martin’s desk).  The hall’s foyers’ numerous plywood chairs have also achieved cult-like status and most of the ones used today are Arne Jacobsen Series 7 Chairs, designed in 1955.  

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1.) Inside Royal Festival Hall and its famous armchairs and ‘net and ball’ carpet. 2.) The festival’s core design team; Robert Matthew, Leslie Martin, Peter Moro and Edwin Williams.

The designers’ dream for Royal Festival Hall was for it to become ‘The People’s Palace’.  A place where everyone could go to socialise, have meetings or just relax and enjoy the views across the Thames that it offers – regardless of whether they were going to a concert there or not.  I first encountered Royal Festival Hall in 2001.  I was doing the first of two work placements at NME (New Musical Express) – then based at IPC Media’s King’s Reach Tower, nearby on Stamford Street, Waterloo.  My Dad and I had wandered there whilst exploring the area along South Bank the weekend before and stumbled upon a free piano recital taking place in its light and airy downstairs lobby.  During the week, it seemed like the ideal place to go and grab a quick sandwich during my lunch break at NME.  At first it felt almost as if I had snuck into the sumptuous, open-plan foyer by mistake – I was shocked that anyone could just walk in off the street and enjoy the space.

During my London years, the RFH foyers and terraces played host to countless meetings with friends, work contacts, visiting Americans and I remember one particularly lively evening early in my PR career entertaining a group of thirsty technology journalists there.  I have seen the likes of Annie Nightingale DJ and Tuto Puone perform in the open-plan Clore Ballroom on the lower level and John Cooper Clarke, Johnny Marr & Nile Rodgers, Stewart Lee, the Manics, Mogwai and The Motown Orchestra all play in the 2,700-capacity ‘egg box’ auditorium upstairs.  The auditorium also hosts the annual Meltdown Festival (past curators have included David Bowie, Lee Scratch Perry, Patti Smith and Scott Walker), as well as being the location of Love and Arthur Lee’s celebratory comeback gigs in 2003 after his release from prison in California.  This show would later be officially released as the Forever Changes Concert.

Royal Festival Hall’s airy foyers and terraces and inside its auditorium.

Things weren’t always so culturally lofty at the hall though.  A group of us, including my mate Scott, went to see a line-up of alternative comedians from the 1980s (curated by Stewart Lee) there in May 2011 and during the interval a play fight broke out that may have culminated in a “bundle” (or “pile-on” if you happen to be American).  As we all returned to our feet, the first person we saw was an unimpressed Frank Skinner looking towards us disdainfully.  On another occasion five years ago, my Welsh pal Mark and I had been on the anti-Brexit protest march around Westminster.  Post-march we decided to go and have a couple of pints at the Duke of Sussex, just off Lower Marsh.  After the pub, we popped into Royal Festival Hall and saw that that it was staging some sort of meditation-inspired exhibition and that the floor of the lobby had been completely covered in fake grass and bean bags.  A little sleepy from the march and the American Pale Ale, we temporarily lay down on the fake grass and were both fast asleep in minutes.  We woke up a little disorientated half an hour later.  Probably not the sort of response the exhibition was looking for, but then again RFH is “a space for all”…

Royal Festival Hall is the one surviving structure of the original 1951 Festival of Britain site.  In the decades following the festival, more cultural and artistic venues were built in the area including the BFI Southbank, Hayward Gallery, The National Theatre, Purcell Room and Queen Elizabeth Hall.  The area became renowned for the arts and creativity and the complex is now known as the Southbank Centre.  Whilst, it was an arguable travesty that the pioneering Dome of Discovery and Skylon were demolished so quickly after the original festival, the site the dome occupied is now home to Jubilee Gardens and the London Eye and this stretch of the river is now one of the most-visited by tourists in the whole of London.  In 2007, Royal Festival Hall paid tribute to the original Skylon by naming its new restaurant in its honour.  Since 1981 it has also been given Grade I-protected status – the first post-war building to be recognised in this way.

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Royal Festival Hall today.

Perhaps the most important legacy of the festival though, is that it acted as a springboard in the careers of so many young architects, curators, designers, producers and writers who were involved in the creation of its numerous areas and exhibitions.  The start-up incubator of its day, perhaps.  The key architects involved in the launch of the festival all went onto have long and successful careers, designers such as Lucienne and Robin Day, Abram Games and Ernest Race became synonymous with mid-century Festival Style and a young Patience Gray got her first ‘break’ contributing to the displays inside ‘The Country Pavilion’ with the designer FHK Henrion.  The Baku-born designer Sir Misha Black worked alongside Gray and Henrion, masterminded the ‘Upstream’ area and co-designed the Dome of Discovery.  His daughter Julia said after Black’s death in 1977; “as for Henrion and my father, the Festival of Britain really made their careers”. 

In many ways, the festival was a signpost for the 1960s – a decade of radical change in Britain, and the rest of the world.  During the warmer evenings, outdoor dancing under moonlight was encouraged in the open space behind Royal Festival Hall (in Julian Hendy’s 2011 BBC documentary an elderly lady called Jean recalls how she met her future husband there) and there was even a dedicated ‘Dance Pavilion’ downstream at the Battersea Pleasure Gardens (maybe the Silver Hayes area at Glastonbury could consider rebranding for 2022?).  The dancing was accompanied by live music and saw some of the first-ever performances by Trinidadian steel pan groups in the UK. The Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TASPO) was invited to perform at the festival in summer 1951 and this would have been the first time the British public would have been exposed to this kind of music.  It proved to be extremely popular and many of the musicians in the orchestra would stay in Britain long after the festival to pursue their love of music and to help increase knowledge about steel pans.  TASPO member and calypso pioneer Sterling Betancourt MBE settled in London and would co-found the Notting Hill Children Street Festival in 1964.  This would later evolve into the Notting Hill Carnival – Europe’s largest street event with an average annual attendance of two million.

The proposed £120 million Festival of Brexit planned for 2022 would do well to learn from the pioneering and futuristic festival that took place on South Bank some 71 years earlier.

Julien Hendy’s 2011 documentary ‘Festival of Britain: A Brave New World’, featuring contributions from Roger Allam and Dominic Sandbrook is available to watch on YouTube below.