Chrisp Street Market Clock Tower is a Grade II listed landmark located in Market Square, Chrisp Street, Poplar. It was designed by the architect Frederick Gibberd as part of the Lansbury Estate for the Festival of Britain, 1951. [1] The clock tower is an example of early post-war architecture, and an aesthetic that became known as the "Festival Style". [2]
The clock tower was designed in 1949 by Frederick Gibberd as part of his plans for Chrisp Street Market, a pedestrianised shopping area that would form the commercial centre of the new Lansbury Estate. [2] The estate was a landmark project in post-war urban renewal, and formed part of the Live Architecture Exhibition at the Festival of Britain, 1951. [3]
However budgetary cuts and time constraints in the run-up to the festival meant that construction on the Lansbury Estate was behind schedule, and the clock tower was built in 1952. [2]
The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition and fair that reached millions of visitors throughout the United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. Historian Kenneth O. Morgan says the Festival was a "triumphant success" during which people:
flocked to the South Bank site, to wander around the Dome of Discovery, gaze at the Skylon, and generally enjoy a festival of national celebration. Up and down the land, lesser festivals enlisted much civic and voluntary enthusiasm. A people curbed by years of total war and half-crushed by austerity and gloom, showed that it had not lost the capacity for enjoying itself....Above all, the Festival made a spectacular setting as a showpiece for the inventiveness and genius of British scientists and technologists.
Poplar is a district in East London, England, the administrative centre of the borough of Tower Hamlets. Five miles (8 km) east of Charing Cross, it is part of the East End.
One Canada Square is a skyscraper in Canary Wharf, London. It was completed in 1991 and is the third tallest building in the United Kingdom at 770 feet (235 m) above ground level containing 50 storeys.
The Barbican Estate, or Barbican, is a residential complex of around 2,000 flats, maisonettes, and houses in central London, England, within the City of London. It is in an area once devastated by World War II bombings and densely populated by financial institutions, 1.4 miles north east of Charing Cross. Originally built as rental housing for middle and upper-middle-class professionals, it remains to this day an upmarket residential estate. It contains, or is adjacent to, the Barbican Arts Centre, the Museum of London, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Barbican public library, the City of London School for Girls and a YMCA, forming the Barbican Complex.
Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, officially known as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King and locally nicknamed "Paddy's Wigwam", is the seat of the Archbishop of Liverpool and the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool in Liverpool, England. The Grade II* Metropolitan Cathedral is one of Liverpool's many listed buildings.
Harlow is a large town and local government district located in the west of Essex, England. Founded as a new town, it is situated on the border with Hertfordshire and London, Harlow occupies a large area of land on the south bank of the upper Stort Valley, which has been made navigable through other towns and features a canal section near its watermill. Old Harlow is a historic village founded by the early medieval age and most of its high street buildings are early Victorian and residential, mostly protected by one of the Conservation Areas in the district. In Old Harlow is a field named Harlowbury, a de-settled monastic area which has the remains of a chapel, a scheduled ancient monument.
Poplar was a local government district in the metropolitan area of London, England. It was formed as a district of the Metropolis in 1855 and became a metropolitan borough in the County of London in 1900. It comprised Poplar, Millwall, Bromley-by-Bow and Bow as well as Old Ford, Fish Island and Cubitt Town.
The Lansbury Estate is a large, historic council housing estate in Poplar and Bromley-by-Bow in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is named after George Lansbury, a Poplar councillor and Labour Party MP.
Chrisp Street Market is the central marketplace and town centre of Poplar and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It was the first purpose-built pedestrian shopping area in the United Kingdom, rebuilt as part of the 1951 Festival of Britain and is directly connected onto the high street, East India Dock Road.
Bartlett Park is a public open space in Poplar in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in London on Upper North Street. It is located to the south of the Limehouse Cut waterway and the Lansbury Estate to the south and east of the park. The whole landscape is 4.95 hectares.
Sir Frederick Ernest Gibberd was an English architect, town planner and landscape designer. He is particularly known for his work in Harlow, Essex, and for the BISF house, a design for a prefabricated council house that was widely adopted in post-war Britain.
The Skylon was a futuristic-looking, slender, vertical, cigar-shaped steel tensegrity structure located by the Thames in London, that gave the illusion of 'floating' above the ground, built in 1951 for the Festival of Britain.
Sir Arnold Joseph Philip Powell, usually known as Philip Powell, was an English post-war architect.
The Dome of Discovery was a temporary exhibition building designed by architect Ralph Tubbs for the Festival of Britain celebrations which took place on London's South Bank in 1951, alongside the River Thames. The consulting engineers were Freeman Fox & Partners, in particular Oleg Kerensky and Gilbert Roberts.
The Golden Lane Estate is a 1950s council housing complex in the City of London. It was built on the northern edge of the City, on a site devastated by bombing during the Second World War. Since 1997, the estate has been protected as a group of listed buildings of special architectural interest.
The Trinity Independent Chapel was an early Victorian church in Poplar. It was destroyed by a V-2 rocket hit during the Second World War, and later re-built in Modernist style. In the late 1990s the building was sold to the Calvary Charismatic Baptist Church, and since then has served as their Prayer Temple and international headquarters.
Newhall is a new housing estate within Harlow, Essex, England. In 2009, it was being built on land originally forming part of Soper Farm. A landowner led development, its planners are Roger Evans Associates, an architectural practice based in Oxford. The design of the new neighbourhood is different from the rest of the first generation New Town, featuring striking contemporary architecture. The plan for Newhall precedes government set housing density levels, current sustainability standards and introduced design codes at a time when they were not common.
The Design Research Unit (DRU) was one of the first generation of British design consultancies combining expertise in architecture, graphics and industrial design. It was founded by the managing director of Stuart Advertising Agency, Marcus Brumwell with Misha Black and Milner Gray in 1943. It became well known for its work in relation to the Festival of Britain in 1951 and its influential corporate identity project for British Rail in 1965. In 2004, DRU merged with Scott Brownrigg architects.
The Building Centre is a building in central London used to promote innovation in the built environment. It is run by the Built Environment Trust, a charitable body.
Lansbury Lawrence School is a primary school in the Lansbury Estate in the Poplar area of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
Media related to Chrisp Street Market clock tower at Wikimedia CommonsCoordinates: 51°30′45″N0°00′50″W / 51.51245°N 0.01402°W
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