The Festival of Britain
THESE REFUGEES’ DIVERSE EXPERIENCES AND BODIES OF WORK LEFT AN INDELIBLE IMPRINT ON THE FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN
Equally eye-catching was The Islanders, a massive relief created by the refugee sculptor Siegfried Charoux. Charoux had arrived in Britain from Austria in 1935, becoming a citizen in 1946. His depiction of a man, woman and child gazing out over the Thames in front of architect Basil Spence’s Sea and Ships pavilion represented the family unit as robust and immutable, and underlined the importance of Britain’s island status to its national identity. Hungarian Peter Laszlo Peri’s sculpture Sunbathing was mounted vertically on the wall of the South Bank’s Waterloo station gate entrance. The playful piece showed a sunbathing couple turning suddenly, as if startled by visitors peering over the A giant saucer wall at them. Of all the pavilions along the banks of the Peri had fled to Britain in 1933 and, Thames, few were more imposing than the alongside a number of festival artists (includ365ft-wide Dome of Discovery, a “vast ing Misha Black), was a member of the aluminium saucer dome”, as its architect, anti-fascist Artists’ International Association Ralph Tubbs, described it. The displays inside (AIA). Another AIA member, the GerTubbs’ enormous creation featured considerman-born exhibition and poster designer able input from designers born overseas. FHK Henrion, was tasked with designing the The dome was filled South Bank’s Country and with displays detailing Natural Scene displays. Henrihow scientific discovery on was interned by the British o had allowed British aauthorities as an Enemy Alien people to circumnavigate eearly in the Second World War the world made by Misha before joining Black to make b Black and his fledgling propaganda at the Ministry of p practice Design Research IInformation. His striking Unit. Hungarian-born displays for the festival – brimd architect Stefan Buzás ming with a visual urgency m joined this team to make more characteristic of central m an Earth Sciences display. European graphic design – E Another popular South ccaught the attention of poet Bank structure was the Dylan Thomas who described towering Skylon, which them as “the natural history climbed 300ft into the of owled and cuckooed, London sky and was ottered, unlikely London”. designed by architects Murals – both painted and Hidalgo Moya and Philip mosaic – featured heavily Powell working with across the Festival of The festival celebrated Britain’s industrial Vienna-born structural past and its position at the vanguard of the Britain’s exhibitions. This engineer Felix Samuely. was an art form suited to science revolution, as this poster shows 54
HOMES AND GARDENS
THE LION AND THE UNICORN
THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN
TRANSPORT
REGAT TA RESTAURANT
An aerial view of some of the highlights of the South Bank Exhibition site. Eight million people visited this, the centrepiece of the Festival of Britain, over the summer of 1951
GETTY IMAGES/ REGINALD MOUNT–VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM LONDON
This was overseen by designer Misha Black, who had emigrated to Britain in 1912 at the age of one from the Russian city of Baku (now Azerbaijan). A collector of ephemera from the Great Exhibition of 1851, Black’s early enthusiasm for holding events to mark the Great Exhibition’s centenary was key to their realisation. Gerald Barry recalled Black visiting his News Chronicle office “with the drawings for a magnificent new exhibition building”, “a kind of interplanetary edifice more or less suspended in the sky”. Black’s futuristic drawing ingeniously anticipated the choice of the South Bank as a central site by several months and inspired Barry to lobby government to stage the festival. The Royal Festival Hall, the only South Bank building that remained on the site after 1951, was designed by German-born Peter Moro, working with architects Robert Matthew and Leslie Martin. Meanwhile, Moro’s compatriot HJ Reifenberg (who settled in Britain immediately prior to the Second World War) co-designed the impressive Power and Production Pavilion at the South Bank. The pavilion incorporated industrial stands (where visitors could witness the spectacle of industry in action) designed by the Hungarian architect George Fejér.
