C O N T E X T 1 1 6 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 23 IHBC Annual School 2010 IHBC Annual School 2009 IHBC Annual School 2010 a whistle-stop tour to admire the exteriors of a number of other local theatres, including the Palace, Phoenix, Prince Edward, Queen’s, Gielgud, Apollo and Lyric. Our final stop was Piccadilly Circus and the Criterion Theatre, after which we enjoyed a well-deserved drink in the eponymous brasserie. I must record my thanks to Mark Price and his colleagues, and to all the professionals involved at the Hippodrome and Wyndham’s who took time out on a Saturday morning to make the event so enjoyable. I was also impressed by the amount of free literature supplied in a very nice Theatres Trust cotton bag. David McDonald South Bank walking tour A rendezvous on Platform 19 at Waterloo station sounds more like the opening of an Agatha Christie novel than the start of a CPD tour. But that was where Doug Black of London Borough of Lambeth began his walk along London’s South Bank. The station itself is a long-running listing case and a cause for concern. Black led us off to the site of the 1951 Festival of Britain to begin the tour. The Saturday morning footfall along the Queen’s Walk was massive, illustrating the continued popularity of the South Bank attractions which began back in ’51. Most of the festival site was dismantled after the fall of the post-war Labour government. The Royal Festival Hall (1949–51, Grade I) survives and still remains the centrepiece of the complex. Some of the buildings have been royally unloved in the past, but today their architecture is having something of a renaissance in the public eye. One example was Denys Lasdun’s National Theatre (1969–76, Grade II*). Black explained the current aspirations of the theatre management to make the building more open and welcoming. He talked about the conservation dilemmas that resulted, and how a collaborative approach between Lambeth Council, English Heritage and the Twentieth Century Society had assisted in the preparation of a very detailed conservation management plan which has informed the currently developing proposals. Flaws with the original concept have been identified. For example, the upper-level terraces, which were meant to be enjoyed by the public, have never really worked. As a result, ways of reactivating them are being considered. Something as simple as the laying of artificial grass in summer has reactivated otherwise hard spaces. This has proved a perennial favourite among visitors, showing that some fixes need not be permanent. We moved through the Hayward Gallery and Queen Elizabeth Hall complex (1963–68 and another longstanding listing case) to the Royal Festival Hall. Here Antonia Powell, a former Lambeth conservation officer, described its relatively recent refurbishment. She explained some of the challenges and dilemmas faced by the interdisciplinary project team. We inspected Doug Black explains the evolution of the South Bank (Photo: Mike Taylor)
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