Architecture as urban landscape
It made John Betjeman “gasp with delight.”
The Grade II* listed National Theatre sits by the Thames. A suave and smooth counterpoint to its neighbours - the muscular Queen Elizabeth Hall and the spiky Hayward Gallery.1
It is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. And to think, there could have been two of them.
The twin was to have been an opera house standing where the London Eye currently spins. The government cancelled it.
The colour of the concrete changes with the light. On a cloudy day it is a muted grey.
When the sun shines it transforms into honey - like the stone on Bath’s Georgian houses.
The South Bank is a place to wander, to eat and meet. A public space where you are free from the suspicious gazes of jobsworth security guards and where your camera isn’t seen as a threat to the nation’s security.2
There’s time to look at the geometric lines, to take in the building block shapes and to stroll along the layered walkways. Time to pause and see the bow of a ship…
… time to the feel the surface of the concrete. The raw, tactile concrete. Textured by the wood markings of their moulds.
It was designed by the architect Denys Lasdun3 based on his idea of “architecture as urban landscape.”
It made John Betjeman4 “gasp with delight.”
It made the then Prince Charles declare that it’s “a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London without anyone objecting.”
Lasdun said in The Times, “A lot of one’s reaction to concrete is prejudice, because it is often used or made very badly. Here it is used with poetry and made with great feeling.”
Indeed.
The National Theatre’s neighbours were the subject of an earlier Substack:
A thrilling hodgepodge
In August 2020 I took my first trip to London after lock down. Art galleries had just reopened and I needed a fix. It was a fortuitous day to choose. The sun was shining and because Covid restrictions were still in place, I had the rare opportunity of photographing normally busy places without people.
This photographer, while waiting for the clouds, was fined in Quebec City for loitering.
Denys Lasdun’s first masterpiece was the Royal College of Physicians in Regents Park. Finished in Sicilian marble and Murano glass tiles, it was one of the first post-war building to be Grade I listed. He also designed the neighbouring IBM Building which is clouded in scaffolding. I hope it’s a sympathetic refurbishment…
John Betjeman was the Poet Laureate from 1972 and a campaigner to save Victorian buildings when it was unfashionable. Much like brutalism was until a decade ago.
Photos made on 15th June 2016, 19th April 2016 and 2017, 18th July 2019, 13th November 2019, 5th August 2020 and 20th April 2022 using various cameras.
This post includes words and photos from a tabloid sized newspaper I published earlier this year. It’s called Brutiful Brutalism and includes photos of some of my favourite brutalist buildings including the National Theatre, the Southbank Centre, the Barbican, Bristol Cathedral and the Brunswick Centre. It also laments buildings which have been demolished such as Sampson House, Birmingham Central Library and the Welbeck Street Car Park.
great photos! well presented
It almost sounds like an ode to concrete! Beautiful photos and amazing building!