Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is the one building left from the Festival of Britain. It opened on the South Bank in May 1951, designed by the London County Council’s architects under Robert Matthew and Leslie Martin, with Peter Moro, and it was the first major public building in the country to be built in the modern manner. The concert hall itself is a separate box of more than 2,500 seats suspended inside the outer shell, an egg in a box as the architects described it, so that the noise of the trains on Hungerford Bridge never reaches the audience. In 1988 it became the first post-war building to be listed Grade I.
In a panorama it is a long, low, pale building on the south bank beside Hungerford Bridge, with the London Eye at one end and Waterloo Bridge at the other. It never competes with the skyline. It sits beneath it.
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London Eye Panorama in Black and White
A panoramic view between Waterloo Bridge and Hungerford Bridge (also known as Charing Cross Railway Bridge) with the London Eye at its centre. Also visible in this panorama are the Shell Centre, County Hall and the Sea Life London Aquarium, the Royal Festival Hall and St Thomas’ Hospital. The image is designed to print at…
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Waterloo Bridge London
London panorama captured from Waterloo Bridge over the River Thames looking west along the South Bank towards Festival Pier, Hungerford Bridge, the London Eye, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.