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This topic comprises 2 pages: 1 2
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Topic: Post your vacation pics here!
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 10-29-2006 12:48 PM
quote:
As you may know, the Atomium is located in Brussels on the so-called Heysel (next to it there is a big multiplex including an IMAX theatre!)
The Atomium is looking in better shape than it was when I saw it. It has re-opened after extensive renovation, probably not for the first time since I saw it. That would have been in the early to mid '70s, when the area was looking very run-down. I never saw the exhibition itself, I would have been one year old at the time. When I saw it we were on a long-day coach trip; overnight on the ferry, spend the day there, ferry back the next night. When we arrived at the Atomium it was already dark. Most of the building was closed, not just because of the time of day I think, but permanently closed. The only spheres which were open were the bottom one, and the top one. We got in the lift, went up to the top, it no longer stopped at the centre one, had a quick look out over the city, and came back down. I remember that the lift moved very fast, it only took a few seconds to reach the top, but it didn't feel fast. Most of the other pavilions had gone by then, but there were a few derelict remains of some of them. At least part of the remarkable Civil Engineering Pavilion web page , and the next few pictures on the site was still there, but part or the long 'spike' seemed to have collapsed.
There are a large number of photos of the original pavilions here , including the wonderfully named 'Luxury Industries, Finery and Extravagance Pavilion'. Was it really called that, or is it a bad translation? Most of the English on the site is very good.
I sometimes think it's a pity that more isn't preserved of these events. Of the ones we've had in this country there's little to be seen.
Great Exhibition, Hyde Park, 1851. Nothing visible remains on the site as far as I know. There are still some things to see where the Crystal Palace was re-built on Sydenham Hill in 1854 until it burned down, in 1936.
Franco-British Exhibition, White City, 1908. I don't think anything remains now; until a couple of years ago there were some concrete buildings on legs, which formed part of a walkway from one of the many railway stations which once existed in the area. These, and the long-disused Wood Lane Underground station were cleared to make way for a new shopping centre, now under construction. The BBC telecision Centre now stands on part of the site. Not part of the exhibition itself, the old Central London Railway power house still stands, the interior of it was used for a couple of shots in 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'
British Empire Exhibition, Wembly, 1924. Several buildings survived, in various uses, but in generally poor condition, in the 1970s; most have since gone. I think the 'Palace of Arts'
still stands, in use as storage by the nearby Wembly Arena and Exhibition and Cnference Centre, though I haven't been there for a few years now.
Festival of Britain, South Bank, 1951. The Festival Hall, a concert hall, is still there, and various other arts buildings, including the National Film Theatre, were later built around it. The 'Telekinema' from the Festival, where the 3-D films and television projection were shown survived until 1957, as the original NFT. There may still be a flagstaff from the Festival on the riverbank, but I haven't noticed it recently; it was there in the late '90s.
The New Millienium Experience, Greenwich, 2000. The empty Dome still survives; it's due to become a 'Super casino'. The less said about the exhibition itself, the better.
That's about it, not much to see. From what I've seen of them in photographs I think Expo 58 and the Festival of Britain had some of the most interesting architecture; Expo 58 having rather more of it than the FoB; it's a pity I never got to see it.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 10-30-2006 09:17 AM
If we're going to mention the Crystal Palace, then I guess its North London counterpart, Alexandra Palace, also deserves a mention. It achieved the dubious distinction of burning down a mere fortnight after its opening in 1873, and (after being rebuilt, obviously) surviving a second major fire in 1980. I wonder if there were any other major public buildings to burn down so soon after opening?
The Palace was home to a huge Victorian concert organ (of the strictly musical variety, before Phil starts getting any ideas), built by Henry 'Father' Willis. Second only in size to the one at Birmingham Town Hall, it was badly damaged in the second fire. It is in the process of restoration, although only about half the original stops are currently operational. I have a 78 of Marcel Dupre playing a Bach prelude and fugue on it in, I'd guess, the early '30s); and even with the limitations of the audio technology of the time, it still sounds amazing.
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Stephen Furley
Film God
Posts: 3059
From: Coulsdon, Croydon, England
Registered: May 2002
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posted 10-31-2006 02:40 PM
Leo, I didn't mention the ally pally because it isn't a leftover from an Expo/World Fair/Great Exhibition type event. However it did serve a similar function to the Crystal Palace had when it was re-bult, in much enlarged form, at Sydenham.
The AP has had an unhappy history, and the organ even more so. The place lost money for most of its extistance, and was in poor condition for many years before the second major fire.
When I was young the palace was best known as the site of the original BBC television studios. By that time most of the production had moved to Television Centre, Lime Grove (now demolished), and various other locations around London, but AP was still used for news, and later for Open University productions. The AP studios were not converted to colour in 1967, and that was the reason that the early OU programmes were in black and white, at a time when most BBC production had switched to colour. The AP studios were eventually converted, and later OU productions were in colour. Te BBC finally moved out some time in the early '80s I think, when a new OU production centre was built at Milton Keynes. The studios were left to decay, and are now in a very poor state; their future is now very much in doubt, but more about that later. The other main claim to fame that the AP had was it's organ, even then, mid '60s, long out of use. It was odd, it was sort of famous, and yet unknown, at the same time. Nobody seemed to have heard it, there were few recordings of it, I've never heard even a single recorded note played on it. Few people seemed to have even seen it. I didn't realise at the time that due to war, vandalism and weather that the organ had actually been out of use for so much of its life; indeed, for most of the 20th Century, with a brief period of restoration, and use, between the wars. It had been out of use for so long that no modern microgroove or magnetic recordings would exist; all that would ever have been made would be 78s, and possibly optical film recordings. For some reason, most of the recordings which exist seem to have been made in the few years following the 1929 re-build, rather than from the later pre-war years. I see that there are some audio clips on the page that you linked to; I'll have to listen to them sometime; it will be like hearig the voice of a ghost!
I did see the organ, or what remained of it, just once, we were taken to an exhibition of some sort, I can't remember what it was, from my school, in about 1970-71; this was the only time that I ever set foot in the Great Hall as it was before the fire. Even at that time the building was clearly in poor condition, and no doubt had no money for repairs. There were holes in the floor, water leaked through the roof, some of the lighting didn't work, the gardens outside the hall were an overgrown wilderness. The visible parts of the organ seemed fairly complete; I can't remember if the console was still there, or if it had been removed, and its space boarded over, as ibn the photographs, but the casework, and the front pipes were all in place. I do remember that the pipes were an odd colour, a sort of dull pink, probably a bit like ladies' face powder, if such a thing still exists; I can't claim to be an expert on make-up. They had painted decoration, which I think was dark green, this doesn't show up very well on the photos. I'd never seen painted pipes before. What I didn't realise until I read the site that you linked to, was that most of the organ had in fact already been removed by this time; I thought that this was only done shortly before the fire. The North rose window, which was blown out during the War, had been bricked, and remains so today. There wouldn't be much point in re-instating it, as not much of it would be visible from ground level, being obscured behind the organ. I remember walking up the steps of the choir, and I think right around the back of the organ.
There are some pictures of the organ at about the time that I saw it, looking fairly respectable here: , and some from about ten years later, just before the fire, are in the 1980 section, showing the state that it was really in.
I think most people expected the demolition men to soon move in; even more so when the Great Hall area, and much of the rest of the Palace except the outer walls was destroyed in the second fire. The Great Hall, and certain other parts of the Palace were restored, though it now looks very different, with it's barrel-vault roof gone. The money wasn't there to restore everything, and large parts of the Palace remain derelict, and closed to the public today, mainly at the North and East of the building. web page.
Three years ago, I think, I did manage to get into a couple of the closed areas at the East end of the building. The first was one or the television studios, I can't remember which one it was. It was very small, and contained a small display of old domestic television receivers, and a mock-up of a 1936 Emitron camera. The other rooms in the studio suite are unsafe, and we were not able to enter them. The other room which we were, just, able to enter was the auditorium of the theatre, disused for it's original purpose since the '30s. It was taken over by the BBC, but I believe was used only for storage of props and scenery, not for producton purposes. We were only allowed a metre of two inside the door, as the ceiling was unsafe, and some of the plasterwork had been taken down. There are a couple of pictures here:
The restored parts of the Palace look nice, but there are problems. I know people who have held events there, and they told me that it is an expensive venue to rent; I don't know how expensive. It's in a rather out of the way location, not that easy to get to. It used to have its own railway line and station, but that closed in the '50s; the station building still survives, in use as a community centre of some sort, it's actally quite close to the organ. The line was a branch from the 'Northern Heights' line, which was to be electrified, and become part of the Northern Line of the London Underground. Much of the electrification work was completed, but the project was abandoned after the War, and both the Alexandra Palace branch and the Northern Heights line itself, were closed. It was also served by a station known as Palace Gates, on a branch from Seven Sisters. The service ran to Nort Woolwich, but the Palace Gates branch closed in about 1964. The present Alexandra Palace station, on the line from London to your part of the world, used to be called Wood Green; it was re-named to make people think it serves the Palace. It does so very badly, it's quite a long walk away, up a very steep hill. I've pushed a woman up that hill in a wheelchair a couple of times, and I was exhausted by the time we reached the top. There is a bus which serves the Palace, but that's not very convienient either.
Re-development of the Palace is due to start soon, but I don't like the sound of some of the proposals. It seems that the television studios may well be lost web page Note that the picture is of the theatre, not the studios.
One of the bidders for the re-development project proposed to "Fund the relocation of the Willis Organ to an appropriate setting", however, the chosen partner proposes "A commitment to supporting the works on the Willis Organ, the restoration of the theatre and associated stage for potential public use." Time will tell what will happen.
It's taken about fifteen years for the restoration of the organ to get as far as it has; I doubt if I'll see it completed in my lifetime.
I see that they're screening 'The General' there on December 12th, with Donald Mackenzie on the organ, but a description of a previous screening of another silent film, 'The Phantom of the Opera' said that it was played from DV tape, on a 12 foot screen; they really do need to go to something bigger in a hall that size, but I suppose it all comes down to money.
Elsewhere on the site it says that a new Cor-Anglais rank will have to be made, as only five pipes have survived from the original. The cost is said to be £4,614, which seems a very reasonable price, but it's still a lot of money if you don't have it! I'm not clear how much material from the organ as it was in 1929, or even 1875, will be incorporated in the new organ. I suspect that there will be little, if anything, except some of the pipes, and I'm not sure how many of those.
As for Birmingham Town Hall, I was there a few weeks ago, the scaffolding is at last coming down, and the building can again be seen. After ten years of closure there's still almost another year of work to be done; the re-opening is scheduled for 4th October 2007.
Just to get back on topic, if anybody's on vacation in London, climb up the hill and have a look at Alexandra Palace; there are some fine views across the City.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 11-01-2006 04:00 AM
quote:
One of the bidders for the re-development project proposed to "Fund the relocation of the Willis Organ to an appropriate setting",
As in, build a whole new hall? I'd like to know where they're going to locate or pay for that. In any case it's a crazy idea - organs are specifically designed for the acoustics of the space in which they're sited - the building and the hall create the sound profile as a combination - and therefore relocating them generally isn't a success. But at least they weren't just proposing to scrap it.
I used to play quite a bit when I was a child, but eventually could not deal with the association of organ music with religious activity. The good thing about the Victorian concert organ phenomenon (of which the Alexandra Palace and Birmingham Town Hall instruments are about the only remaining, playable survivors, I think) is that, along with organs in cinemas, it was about the only tradition of organ music which didn't involve churches.
Edit to add this paragraph (about 13 hours after original post):
Just looked at the organ restoration campaign website again and found this incredible recording (links directly to MP3 file - page it's supposed to launch from is here) of Marcel Dupré playing the 1929 rebuild version of the organ (final movement of Widor's 5th organ symphony). Even with the severely restricted frequency response of a 1930 78, when he lets those 32ft open diapasons rip in the pedal line of the last two variations, my subwoofer wanted to part company with the floor! I've ordered the CD from Amazon, even though the Bach C minor prelude & fugue is the one I have an original 78 of. I can't work Dupré out - records of his performances of the 19th C virtuoso concert organ stuff (esp. Widor and Guilmant) are amazing, and exactly what organs like the Alexandra Palace one were designed for: but his own compositions seem very avant-garde and do nothing whatsoever for me.
[ 11-01-2006, 05:35 PM: Message edited by: Leo Enticknap ]
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