The Royal Festival Hall (RFH) was built earlier for the council of London as the festival of Britain. When the council was abolished, the hall was taken over by the council of arts. Later in 1998, it become an independent organization of arts called as Southbank center. Due to large venue capacity, the maintenance of the building became difficult. By 2000, it is not used by the people. Then in the year 2005, the restoration of the hall began. Finally in 2014, it again become one of the favorite place of the people to conduct various events (historicengland.org.uk, 2017). The shopping centers are good just for shopping and they are not a democratic place. Similarly, it is said that the cities should have active public spaces and such places should be used for more than one purpose. The public places should have multiple uses.
Earlier, RFH has bad seats and then its interior decor was grubby (Kettle, 2017). The urban designers created a part of the city to attract large number of people. Many public spaces are disappointed for its architecture. Hence, the public places should have large extent spaces in the modern cities. Based on the architecture and culture, the Royal Festive Hall is one of the interesting public space for the people. The foyer like RFH shows that it creates a great novel of public interior and it can be a successful public space. Hence, RFH must be an entertainment space and not a democratic space (Administrator, 2017) (Borden, 2002).
The main objective of this report is to describe about the Interior design of the Royal Festive Hall with its entertainment qualities, where the spatial conditions of the hall and its entertainment quotient will be evaluated. The facts of the Royal Festival Hall will be investigated. Further, four similar building interior cases will be studied and compared. Finally, the modern and the classical interior architecture related to stair case and ceiling design will be compared.
The Royal Festival Hall is a cultural hall for conducting the shows and work related meetings. This building contains more number of reception halls, bars, restaurants, clore ballrooms and it also includes educational facility. Currently, this building is managed by a separated art organization which is called as Southbank center. This complex has multiplicity of open spaces as well as foyers which are used for arranging the social meetings or business meetings. An aerial member, successor and partners have separate place for their works (Bayley, 2017).
Royal Festival Hall is a part of the British life and each individual is aware of it. It is a place which has a history of each British and their grandparents. It is a place where people might have performed in the conducted events (Hugh Pearman, 2017).
Thus, the Royal festival hall is an Auditorium located in Southbank Centre. The hall has fixed seats of almost 2,500 people. In Southbank Center, Royal Festival hall is a centerpiece to host all the events like orchestral, conferences, graduation ceremonies and pop concerts. This hall contains all the original features of 1950s, and then it has a state-of-the-art stage and rig (Eventopedia.com, 2017).
Now at present, they have the following (Southbankcentre.co.uk, 2017) (muncharoo.com, 2017):
The Royal Festival hall contains many rooms for reception, restaurants and bars. It has clore ballroom which accommodates 440 seating chairs for dinning. A large sculpture of Nelson Mandela’s head and shoulder stands on the way where the people walk. There are many open spaces which are used for the social work like meetings. The building contains roof tops (NAGASAKI, 2014).
The auditorium entry doors are accessed by the lift and the stairs. The lifts are made up of glass. The washrooms are located in the foyer place in each and every level. The Royal festival hall was joined with two music venues. It is the queen Elizabeth hall and the Purcell room which was opened during 1967. There is a British film institute which is located very adjacent to the Royal Festival Hall and it attracts all.
Royal Festive Hall is an entertainment place because it satisfies the fundamental interior design of an entertainment place. The interior design of the Royal festive hall is given below:
The entire environment and surroundings have shops, cafes and bars. It has two new stair cases. One in external side and one in internal side and it is sheltered by the metal canopies. It gives brightness in the upper terrace and it is repopulated by the cafe and concrete barriers. It has busy root between the waterloo and footbridge and they are lined up with cafes and shops. Also it has houses in the new building and it is accommodated by the administrative offices of Southbank center. The upper two floors have offices and the lower two floors have delivery bay and service areas (The Independent, 2017).
It has transparent foyers and the internal spaces have distinctive elements. The refurbishment of the foyers has recovered the circulation clarity and they are reinstated with original entrances. The important facilities are placed at the original location. The top of the building is reinstated for the public use. It also encloses the pergolas, pavilions. The new glass lift is used to access the entrance of waterloo building. New lightening, carpets, original strong colors are used in the walls.
The main ambition of the auditoriums is to fulfill the great concerts of the halls in worldwide level. The original goal is to provide strong enough sounds with the expertise of great associates. It should also remove more reflected sounds from the audience. The main problem for the performers is to hear when they are in their platform. The blast side walls are made of plywood and it projects the sound away from the performer’s stage (e-architect.co.uk, 2017). New stage lifts are used to overcome this problem and the original plywood are replaced by the fabric reflectors which gives high frequency. RFH is a building which is appreciated by the public (Gorst, 2012).
In today’s world there is a demand for the variety of programs in the Royal Festive Hall. The setup of this stage requires radical improvement with production and lighting. It also has backstage facilities and it is reconfigured with the lifts to move to eleven separate parts. Every weekend, this hall is visited by around 250000 people. The Royal Festive Hall is the cultural heart of that place, and now this hall is worthy for the festival beginnings. Hence, it satisfies all the fundamental interior design of the entertainment spaces.
The primary design of Royal Festival Hall’s building is that it is a piece of intellectual and structural pleasure. The facts of Royal Festival Hall are listed below:
Baroque Architecture: People who get into Royal Festival Hall do not view the design, glass, and marbles, but first they face difficulties to deal with the historian and how to realize their experience about this building. The second difficulty is how to narrate about the people who are visible in this building and how to compare them with the current situation (Discover the London area of Kensington, 2017).
Interior Design: The interior design of this hall is designed by member of building research station. The interior of RFH building contains marbles with explosive shock, metals and shining woods. The boxes look like half opened drawers. Whenever the concert and musical festivals take place, by the end of the program people will not be willing to leave this beautifully interior designed hall. This hall looks great from inside when compared to the building’s exterior design. Because, it has social sense and collective information. When the people enters into this building not only their eyes but also their body and mind realizes the amazing facts about art from this hall (Glendinning, 2003). It has classic interiors (Time Out London, 2017).
New Festival hall Structure: The structure of the new festival hall is designed and maintained by using technical methods. According to the public, the building model looks like a favor of a plainer and hard edged style. The foot print of this building looks like “Egg in the box” that it is an auditorium impartial with the hall (Orlowski, 1995).
Ceiling Design: The ceiling design in the auditorium of this building looks more beautiful when compared to its interior. This building is also said to be “Jonathan Glancy”, because it is a light filled and sleek building. For designing the ceiling of this hall RFH’s architects spent more time (Glendinning, 2003).
Four similar buildings like Royal Festival hall are studied and compared. They are as follows:
The Suntory hall is located in Tokyo of Japan. It contains only 2 halls, which includes the main hall and the small hall. The seats in the main hall is at the concert stage. The small hall consists of three different kinds of sections and is also called as the blue rose. They can be moved wherever necessary. The main purpose is only for the chamber music (the Guardian, 2017). This cannot reach the architecture of the Royal festival hall. The architecture of the Suntory hall has two halls whereas the Royal Festival Hall has many levels for each requirement.
The symphony hall is a concert hall and is located at Boston. It was built in the year 1900. The hall is entirely designed and modeled on the Gewandhaus concert hall and is destroyed totally in the World War II. They have the long hall which is narrow. It resembles like a rectangular shoe box. It is only a three sided hall and has wooden floors. But the Royal festival hall has many number of levels and has excellent acoustics. The symphony hall is built of the steel, brick and the plaster. But the Royal festival hall have the modest decoration. When compared to the Royal festive hall, the symphony occupies less land area and the sophistications.
The Walt Disney concert hall is located at California in USA. The construction of the concert hall started at 1994. But due to financial issues the project gets delayed. The building’s exterior is designed with the stainless steel. It is given the matte finish. Only the exterior part of the building looks attractive. But, it has very less number of inner halls. There was an increased risk or even traffic accidents may occur because of the polished surface of the Walt Disney concert hall. But in the case of the Royal festival hall, the chance of accident because of the building is nil.
The Sibelius hall is a concert hall which is located in Finland. The construction of the Sibelius hall is completed in the year 2000 (Sinfonialahti.fi, 2017). They have the capacity of 1250 seats in which the Royal festival hall has almost 2500 seating chairs for the people. The entrance to the seats for the people on the main floor are through the chambers of reverberance. Then the entrances for the balconies are from the Forest hall balconies which is located near to it. But the Royal festival hall has much better architecture better than the Sibelius hall.
The importance of the Royal Festival Hall contains the following features include, unreliable entry toward car, which had a poorly lit back road without signage. Fortunately, an aide pointed the best approach and the people find the lift of the theater easily (e-architect.co.uk, 2017).
Interior design of Royal Festival Hall is incredibly acoustic, and it has a lot about its offices. Furthermore, the quality of sound which the auditorium provides is extraordinary. The foyers and terraces of the waterway side of the building are simply superb. The dressing rooms at the back are mind-blowing with all the facilities for the performers (Lomholt and Welch, 2017). The sound of the audience was restricted earlier, but after the renovation of the hall, the sound related troubles hardly exist (e-architect.co.uk, 2017) (Newstatesman.com, 2017).
In 1948, the design of the concert hall is looks like an egg in a box. The staircases in the center gives a ceremonial feel and it moves at the different levels of the air and light. The ceiling was fully sculptural and it is based on the edge of building technology. The classic staircase has upstream side walls with floating staircases. In 1951, the atmosphere has no wireless interference (Bayley, 2017). In 2007 after the expectations, it requires digital clarity for the live music and in personal music players. In 1962 the main goal of the RFH is based on the external appearance of the place. The interior is too bad and it is more cultured. The architects are not deal with the unfashionable left over. The inside of the main hall has no fabric reflectors and it is designed with harmonies bands with plasterwork ceiling (A London Inheritance, 2017). The original architecture of the royal festive Hall is survived to make it fashionable and richly modelled architecture.
After the reconstruction in 1964, the modifications are made in the main structure to reduce the seating capacity and provision of a new ceiling (Time Out London, 2017). In the modern interior architecture the ceiling is fixed with microphones associated with loudspeaker. The ceilings were involved in the plainer treatment with flat ceiling and wooden floor. The main foyer around 24 to 28 feet is sealed with lightening features (Alliesandmorrison.com, 2017). In the 2007 renovation the wooden panels in the hall are relined to change the acoustic quality. The plaster ceilings are completed reconstructed with robust materials. It provides great support for the sound and bass frequencies. After re-assembling, the components in the walls and ceilings are removed and it is refitted with sturdier materials. The seating and stalls are reconfigured with more leg room. Two rows of seats are removed and the remaining’s are distributed with same depth. In the modern architecture the public spaces have been reduced and the auditorium is envisaged (Hugh Pearman, 2017). But it created the hall acoustics problem and it is turned out as an embarrassment. It remains the access of the servicing difficulties and they are addressed. But the original architecture is not considered in the design and the modulation is purely based on the practical level. The backside of the hall looks enough in 1951 with its temporary facade. The quality of the interiors are survived and they are re-revealed with the Morrison scheme. The interior design of the hall is dismantled and it is rebuilt with less absorbents and more solids (Woodward, 2017).
Conclusion
Royal Festival Hall is a part of the British life and each individual is aware of it. The Royal Festival Hall’s interior design with entertainment quotients and spatial conditions are studied and evaluated. The facts of the Royal Festival Hall are investigated. RFH is renovated and is compared from its earlier interiors.
Just like each place has its own decorum. Entertainment must not be based on the status of the people and inequality of income, instead it must be a common place for all. This gives a broad minded approach to understand that each human being has the equal social rights, therefore people must not be divided based on their financial differences. It creates unrest in the country and can impact on the growth of the country. People must be provided with equal rights. As Royal Festival Hall is a centerpiece of Southbank and people gather here for various reasons especially entertainment it must be considered as an entertainment space rather than a democratic space. Moreover, Royal Festive Hall connects people with its architecture and people love this as a public space and it is the cultural heart of the place and which is worthy for a festival beginning. However as RFH satisfies all the fundamental interior design related to pleasing the audience, it is a complete entertainment space. The newly designed auditorium fulfill the features of a great concert hall globally. It provides strong sound, where the reflected sounds from the audience is discarded. The original plywood is replaced with the fabric reflectors which gives high frequency and resolves the problems the performers face with respect to their own sound. RFH is a building which is appreciated by the public.
Four similar building interior cases are researched and compared. The four halls are Suntory hall, Symphony Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall and Sibelius Hall. Finally, the modern and the classical interior architecture related to stair case and ceiling design are compared.
The future work of the Royal Festival Hall is analyzed from the existing problems of the hall and the experience of the audience during the events. In future, Royal Festival Hall can focus on improving the condition of the living room’s surfaces which is mentioned by the acoustic consultants. The acoustic problem is ignored in the construction process by rebuilding. Assisted resonance is used for solving this problem (Acoustics.salford.ac.uk, 2017). Further, in future the tone can be strengthen or improved by improving the quality of acoustics from the current modification in the building, to retain the global level of Royal Festival Hall to fit into the category of entertainment space.
The future aim of Southbank center is to have a fully pedestrianized route to the river that exists between Royal Festival hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) and Hayward Gallery. It also aims at expanding the QEH’s roof gardens. It is not the end, it has many more future plans, it further wants to create new performance spaces, and improvise the networks among the Southbank Centre and neighboring area around it (Southbankcentre.co.uk, 2017).
References
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