Southbank & Hayward Gallery, London
Built: 1948-1968
Designed by: London County Council Architects Department
The Southbank Centre was built on the site of the 1951 Festival of Britain. Itʼs venues include the one surviving building from 1951, the Royal Festival Hall. Plus Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room, the Hayward Gallery and a skatepark in the undercroft.
These bold buildings were designed by a team of radical young architects led by Norman Engleback. They were given the freedom to design “a thrilling hodgepodge of sprouting mushroom columns, jumbled geometries, cantilevered cubes, and precipitous terraces.” (Southbank Centre website).
The Centre has a more muscular and sculptural design than its neighbours - the suave and smooth National Theatre and the Scandinavian elegance of the Royal Festival Hall.
The concrete was hand-made. Poured into moulds of Baltic pine which earned its description of being a wooden building cast in concrete.
When first opened in the 1968, the Queen Elizabeth Hall was ranked ‘the ugliest building in Britain,’ in a Daily Mail poll.
