Launched by King George VI on 3 May 1951, the Festival of Britain was conceived as a “tonic” for a nation battered by war, debt and rationing. At a time of ongoing global conflicts and austerity, there are parallels with today.
Its impact in 1951 is hard to overstate. What buildings remained were smoke-blackened; the air was full of smog. Into this dreary landscape, the festival was an explosion of colour and creativity, offering a dazzling vision of the future.
Its most enduring legacy was the construction of the South Bank. The Royal Festival Hall was built on a bomb site by the Thames. With the additions in the 1960s of the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Purcell Room and the Hayward Gallery (collectively granted Grade II-listed building status earlier this year), the Southbank Centre became the largest arts complex in the UK.
This summer, poems from more than 2,000 London schoolchildren will be projected on to its concrete walls as part of the 75th-anniversary commemorations of the Festival of Britain. The festivities kick off this weekend with a celebration of British youth culture created by Danny Boyle, mastermind of the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. In keeping with the nationwide ethos of the original festival, a mobile poetry library will visit 10 coastal towns around the UK, recreating the journey of the Campania, a naval ship repurposed as a floating exhibition space 75 years ago.
In 1951, almost 8.5 million people visited the South Bank site alone. The festival was a triumph for the Labour government. But it was not without its critics. Some saw it as a declining-empire bread-and-circuses ploy; others as a sign of a changing of the cultural guard. Evelyn Waugh disapproved. Noël Coward wrote a satirical song called Don’t Make Fun of the Fair. A month after the festival closed on 1 October, the new Conservative government demolished everything, apart from the Royal Festival Hall.
But it was undoubtedly a turning point for British culture. Setting the style for the 60s and 70s, it helped usher in an era of mass consumerism and technological optimism. It created a model for cultural spaces open to all, not just the wealthy. The Royal Festival Hall paved the way for venues like the Barbican in the City of London, the Glasshouse in Gateshead and the Lowry in Salford. Last weekend, the impressive Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities opened in Oxford, boasting theatres, a cinema, gallery space and a 500-seat concert hall – thanks to its billionaire American donor.
The Southbank Centre is one of the best-funded arts institutions in the country. But, like so many, it is struggling after years of real-terms cuts. The £10m from the new Arts Everywhere Fund announced last month does not cover the estimated £165m cost of repairing its ageing buildings. Its windows are the originals from 1951, a time when there was state-led cultural ambition despite austerity.
But there are signs of regeneration, at least in the capital. The South Bank has been joined by a new cultural quarter, the East Bank, on the site of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The recently opened V&A East Museum and V&A Storehouse show that the blueprint for innovation and architectural ambition laid down by the festival endures. Above all, the Festival of Britain is a timely reminder of how art can bring people together in the darkest times – and that is something to celebrate today.
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