FOLAR 2021 Symposium

The 1951 Festival of Britain was a national celebration of Britain's achievements and recovery following the Second World War, and was timed to mark the 100th anniversary of the 1851 Great Exhibition. In many ways this was also a coming of age for the British landscape architecture profession.

On the 70th anniversary of the Festival, the FOLAR Symposium 2021 marks the achievements of this young profession and its role in celebrating post war Britain.

This symposium accompanies the Museum of English Rural Life's online exhibition '51 Voices', an exploration and celebration of 51 Objects which reflect the ideas and products of 1951, the year the museum was established. The objects include items from the Festival of Britain's Country Pavilion, such as Michael O’Connor’s wonderful wall hanging celebrating the agriculture of Britain.

Talks cover

• the organisation and precedents for the 1951 festival: talk by Dr Harriet Atkinson

• the South Bank exhibition where (Sir) Peter Shepheard designed the public area downstream of Hungerford Bridge and Peter Youngman designed the upstream areas. Individual gardens were designed by Frank Clark and Maria Teresa Parpagliolo Shephard: talk by Dr Alan Powers

• the Festival Gardens at Battersea Park where Russell Page was landscape architect for parts of. these gardens: talk by Helen Brown

• and the Living Architecture exhibition on the Lansbury Estate, in blitz devastated Poplar, (Sir) Frederick Gibberd, architect and landscape architect designed the Chrisp Street Market and both Geoffrey Jellicoe and Peter Shepheard designed housing and Judith Ledeboer designed the Old People’s Home: by Camilla Beresford..

IMAGE View of the South Bank Festival Gardens by Eric Fraser, copyright The National Archives, WORK 25/64/B1/SB-Gen/24