Talk:Festival of Britain
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Anyone know how tall the Skylon was? I've been unable to find out by googling. Mintguy
Link is for the wrong Skylon. Mintguy (T)
The section entitled Legacy is incorrect, unless my interpertation of the word "profit" is different from the writer's. The Festival of Britain cost around £10.5M, with revenues of only £2.5M (Government White Paper Cmd.8872 published 29th July 1953) so it certainly was not profitable in financial terms, although I don't think it was ever planned to be. Nevertheless, my vague memories of it were that it was exciting and futuristic and very well worthwhile as a public spectacle. Unless anyone objects, I will edit this section when I have done some more research. Peter Maggs 22:42, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Martin and Constructivism
The South Bank centre did not really get going until 1968. Anyone know what the site was left like after the festival buildings were torn down.
I have been doing quite a bit on the British Constructivists on wiki and many of them contributed to the Festival - perhaps even dominated. Leslie Martin who did the Festival Hall was close to Hepworth and Nicholson before the war and brought along Pasmore, the Martins who all contributed murals, mosaics, sculptures. If anyone has the time it would be interesting to see a detail of what works were in the main shows.Piersmasterson 15:38, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
- There is a fair amount about the site after the exhibition in The Times newspaper, which can be accessed through the Times Digital Archive. When I have a minute, I'll have a look at it. Peter Maggs 18:44, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
- I have now had a brief look for this material. There a wealth of information just in The Times, but the only efficient way to find it, is to use the Digital Archive, which allows you to do date and word searches. Peter Maggs 12:53, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Guidebook
I found a copy of the guidebook for sale, and it occurred to me that it is probably Crown Copyright and therefore may have expired. If this is confirmed I will probably buy a copy as there are lots of illustrations that would be nice to use. Justinc 16:02, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
- I have put up the cover of the Guide to the South Bank Exhibition as it shows well the Festival emblem. (Abram Games called it an "emblem" rather than a "logo".) Unfortunately my copy is in poor condition; if anyone has a better image it would be welcome. I have also created a link to the "Designing Britain" website, which shows good photos of the Festival. Marshall46 13:58, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Disambiguation of Exhibition
I've removed the link to the disambiguation page, but there are two viable choices from there. One is the World's fair which seems wrong, the other is the Art exhibition which does not seem to encompass it all. I've opted for the latter, but would welcome a better point of view or choice of page. Please don't link back to disambiguation - I know this has nothing to do with scholarships to Oxford University! ;) LeeG 14:22, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Festival Clock -- Battersea Park
I noticed that the Guinness Festival Clock was reported as being in the South Bank. In fact it was in the Pleasure Gardens at Battersea Park. I've corrected this, and added a bit about the Gardens (and the Exhibition of Science, with a link to my site). I found a nice photo of the clock in the family archives, so I hope to add this when I manage to scan it. (Something horrific happened while I was editing the page... all the text above the section I was editing vanished! (I believe wikipedia was having server problems.) I cut and pasted the text from the previous version, so I think things are back correctly. If anyone sees any problem, please correct it!) Pete G. 00:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
- Problems now fixed --mervyn 07:47, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
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- Thanks Mervyn... (Have no idea what happened -- I was supposedly editing just that paragraph, but when I saved it *only* that bit was left! Guess it lost the following stuff too.) I re-edited again to take out the bit from the old para that was repeated in my added one. Pete G. 21:13, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Closure
"Terence Conran has speculated that the haste with which the main site was cleared was an act of political revenge by the incoming Conservative Party government."
This opinion is also expressed in "A Tonic to the Nation". However, the South Bank Exhibition was due to close on September 30 and the election didn't take place until October. Churchill's contempt for the Festival of Britain is well known, and also, I believe, is the fact that the instruction to clear the site was the first act of his government. But it was going to be cleared anyway. Marshall46 14:08, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
[edit] 1951 office building (latest edit)
The new sentence unfortunately doesn't make it clear whether the architects or the building were not formally part of the Festival. I can't fix it because I don't know the answer... --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 14:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
