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.
Sir Denys Louis Lasdun, CH, CBE, RA was an eminent English architect, the son of Nathan Lasdun (1879–1920) and Julie. Probably his best known work is the Royal National Theatre, on London's South Bank of the Thames, which is a Grade II* listed building and one of the most notable examples of Brutalist design in the United Kingdom.
Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid was a Iraqi architect, artist and designer, recognised as a major figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, Hadid studied mathematics as an undergraduate and then enrolled at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in 1972. In search of an alternative system to traditional architectural drawing, and influenced by Suprematism and the Russian avant-garde, Hadid adopted painting as a design tool and abstraction as an investigative principle to "reinvestigate the aborted and untested experiments of Modernism [...] to unveil new fields of building."
The Roundhouse is a performing arts and concert venue situated at the Grade II* listed former railway engine shed in Chalk Farm, London, England.
Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) is an American architecture firm that provides architecture, interior, programming and master planning services for clients in both the public and private sectors. KPF is one of the largest architecture firms in New York City, where it is headquartered.
The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by Benjamin Britten.
Conrad Hartley Pelham Shawcross is a British artist specializing in mechanical sculptures based on philosophical and scientific ideas. Shawcross is the youngest living member of the Royal Academy of Arts.
Sir David Alan Chipperfield, is an English architect. He established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985.
22 Bishopsgate, also known as Twentytwo, is a commercial skyscraper in London, United Kingdom. Completed in 2020, it occupies a prominent site in Bishopsgate, in the City of London financial district, and stands at 278 m (912 ft) tall with 62 storeys. The project replaces an earlier plan for a 288 m (945 ft) tower named The Pinnacle, on which construction was started in 2008 but suspended in 2012 following the Great Recession, with only the concrete core of the first seven storeys. The structure was later subjected to a re-design, out of which it became known by its postal address, 22 Bishopsgate.
Neo-futurism is a late-20th to early-21st-century movement in the arts, design, and architecture. It has been seen as a departure from the attitude of post-modernism and represents an idealistic belief in a better future.
Allies and Morrison LLP is an architecture and urban planning practice based in London and Cambridge. Founded in 1984, the practice is now one of Britain's largest architectural firms. The practice's work ranges from architecture and interior design to conservation and renovation of historic buildings to urbanism, planning, consultation and research. The firm's notable projects include the redevelopment of the Royal Festival Hall, the masterplan for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, BBC Media Village and the redevelopment of King's Cross Central. The practice has a reputation for designing modernist, yet stylistically restrained buildings.
Sir David Frank Adjaye is a Ghanaian-British architect. He is known for designing many notable buildings around the world, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. Adjaye was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to architecture. He is the recipient of the 2021 Royal Gold Medal, making him the first black recipient and one of the youngest recipients.
The World Architecture Festival (WAF) is an annual festival and awards ceremony, one of the most prestigious events dedicated to the architecture and development industry. The first four events were held in Barcelona, from 2008 to 2011, at which point the festival moved to Singapore for four years. Since 2016, host cities have included Berlin and Amsterdam. It is the only event where around 550 shortlisted architects present their projects live in crit rooms to a judging panel. One of these projects is awarded the World Building of the Year title. Each year the World Architecture Festival publishes a list of the winners of the awards on their official website.
The year 2011 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
Building Design, or BD, is a weekly architectural magazine and digital title in the United Kingdom. It is based in London.
Annabelle Selldorf is a German-born architect and founding principal of Selldorf Architects, a New York City-based architecture practice. She is a fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA) and the recipient of the 2016 AIANY Medal of Honor. Her projects include the Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility, Neue Galerie New York, The Rubell Museum, a renovation of the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, David Zwirner's 20th Street Gallery, The Mwabwindo School, 21 East 12th Street, 200 11th Avenue, 10 Bond Street, and several buildings for the LUMA Foundation's new contemporary art center in Arles, France.
The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings and also the National Theatre and BFI Southbank repertory cinema. Following a rebranding of the South Bank Centre to Southbank Centre in early 2007, the Hayward Gallery was known as the Hayward until early 2011.
PLP Architecture is an architecture firm based in London. In June 2016, the firm received planning permission for 22 Bishopsgate, the tallest tower in the City of London.
Elsie Owusu RIBA FRSA is a Ghana-born British architect, a founding member and the first chair of the Society of Black Architects. She is also known to have co-led the refurbishment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in 2009 and worked on Green Park tube station. She has been an elected Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Council member since 2014, and vice-chair of the London School of Architecture.
David Kohn is a British architect. His practice, David Kohn Architects, is based in London and works internationally on arts, education and residential projects.
