Royal Albert Hall
I've always been fascinated by the Hall. Surely, there isn't a more beautiful venue anywhere. Standing outside the beauty of the walls, the brickwork, the colours, take your breath away. A living, breathing, vibrant work of art.
I guess I got interested in it after seeing it featured in Michael Caine's cult 60s movie, The Ipcress Fille and in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much (1936) and the 1956 remake of the same name. Not just the Hall but the exquisite flats around it. In nearby Albert Court (which I have pictured) lived the King Tutankhamun archaeologist Howard Carter (1874-1939), and it must be like living in dreamland living there. Victorianland dreamy buildings reach high around the dome of the Hall taking you back a 100 years at will.
The Royal Albert Hall was opened by Queen Victoria on 29 March 1871. Her husband, Prince Albert, had died 10 years before but had proposed that a permanent series of facilities be built in the area for the enlightenment of the public. The Hall and the memorial opposite are a fitting tribute to the man so important in seeing the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park come to life. With its success and the surplus of £180,000, the Queen and Prince Albert were able to purchase land in South Kensington and establish educational and cultural institutions there, including what would later be named the Victoria and Albert Museum. Lordy, imagine if he hadn't perserved with the Great Exhibition?? In other words imagine a landscape without the V&A, the Royal College of Music and the Royal ALbert Hall as well as other buildings in the area. Crikey, it would be like a soul without a king, a city without a heart.
Doesn't bear thinking about!
But for me it is precisely because of this that makes Prnce Albert the most important Royal ever.
Needless to say, it's a Grade 1 listed building. It can hold around 5,500 spectators.
The Hall was designed by Captain Francis Fowke and Major-General Henry Y.D. Scott of the Royal Engineers and built by Lucas Brothers.
I have also pictured the great mosaic frieze, depicting "The Triumph of Arts and Sciences", which goes around the Hall.
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Most of these photos are available as signed prints. Please e-mail for details. Some photos shown in various stages of manipulation.
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Added an extensive biography of the Proms creator Sir Henry J. Wood and a brilliant history of the Proms.
- Paul Page (2009)
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