There can’t be many Londoners or even “out of towners” reading this who haven’t their own memories of visiting the Royal Festival Hall (RFH). Mine are in no particular order: A concert to celebrate the refurbishment of the organ, a gamelan workshop and concerts by both The Divine Comedy and the sublime Omara Portuondo. This book through a series of essays and one poem celebrates its Seventy Fifth birthday with pieces as wide ranging as the acoustic refinement of the Hall to the life of the foyers.
Built as the centrepiece to the 1951 Festival of Britain with the enthusiastic support of The Times (How Times change) the architect Robert Matthew and his team were much influenced by the Scandinavian architecture of the time – Particularly Sweden. Through this they came up with the “Egg in the box” concept to insulate the concert hall from the noise of its busy location outside. Various additions and reconfigurations bring us the much loved venue we have today and excellent essays look at both its inception and its 2007 rebirth – Opening itself up to the similarly river refocused Southbank. The essay Culture Wars discusses the way the venue has weathered the different political storms that have gone on around it – both from conception to the GLC control in a Thatcher’s Britain. Today the idea of the RFH without an open foyer would be unthinkable but as explained in “Opening up the Foyers” it was not always so and down to Labour’s Tony Banks finding it locked up in 1982 that we can count on almost 45 years of this welcoming egalitarian space. Laying a good claim to being the genuine “London’s Living Room”.
There’s also room for personal insights. Whether it is asking musicians to talk of performing there or the Head of maintenance to discuss the Hall’s challenges. In Erica Hesketh’s poem Centrepiece we find not only my “Indonesian gongs” but “a fountain to run through like you’re five again”.
Adorned by Edward Sumner’s evocative photos and with archive photos and architectural plans the book is also a feast for the eye.
Concluding with a look to the future. Eleanor Jolliffe’s piece explains that although aging well, decisions will need to be made about this, “deceptively simple masterpiece” Expensive to run, the windows and the insulation need upgrading. Not only costly these changes need to be balanced with its Grade 1 listed status.
Signing off with John Ruskin’s observation “Take care of your monuments and you will not need to restore them” The book stands as a fitting celebration of the RFH’s past seventy five years as a mainstay of London’s cultural life and what goes in to it to keep it that way.
Photo Credit ©Edmund Sumner
