Royal Festival Hall revival
Royal Festival Hall, Allies & Morrison Architects, 2007. Copyright © Peter Cook.
London, Victoria and Albert Museum, 21 June - 14 October 2007
V&A + RIBA Architecture Gallery
As the Royal Festival Hall reopened after a closure period of two years, many people were eager to see what has happened to this much-loved place. That exhibition revealed how this landmark building had been painstakingly refocused to meet the demands of the next 50 years as a world-class concert venue and a vibrant public arena for the arts.
Allies and Morrison, architects of the refurbishment project, are passionate admirers of the 1951 design and took care to respectfully locate these radical changes within the context of the original building. The thinking behind their work has been revealed in models, drawings and photographs.
The newly completed project enabled many of the original aspirations for the Royal Festival Hall to be achieved. This included improving the natural acoustics of the auditorium as well as re-establishing the promenade through its accessible open foyers by clearing away the clutter that had obscured the generosity of these fine spaces.
Curated by Diane Haigh of Allies and Morrison with Eleanor Gawne of the RIBA Trust.
