The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space

The Royal Festival Hall—a “Democratic” Space?
but ironically, these have the worst views of the stage of anywhere in the auditorium—and
the worst of all is the royal box.) The absence of any architectural
means to sustain hierarchies of social difference within has led to the
hall widely being described as “democratic,” and “a monument to the welfare
state.” How are we to interpret these remarks?
Nikolaus Pevsner, writing the year after the Festival Hall opened,
described the interior staircases and promenades as having “a freedom and
intricacy of flow, in their own way as thrilling as what we see in the Baroque
churches of Germany and Austria.” 1 Pevsner’s perceptive remark draws to
our attention that the foyer does indeed have the form of a church in its
single unbroken volume, and that just as in a baroque church there is implied
movement within, forward, sideways, and backward. And we can take
this comparison further: the succession of perforated planes, landings, stairs,
and balconies provides an ever-receding sense of depth, against which the
outer wall of the building (much of it glass) appears insignificant, a feature
which also corresponds to that of south German baroque churches. When
11.3 | Royal Festival Hall, auditorium. Contemporary photograph.