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The South Kensington Museum

ANOTHER unbuilt project: this time a plan for completing the South Kensington Museum (or the Victoria & Albert as it’s now called) in the part of London which has become known as ‘Albertopolis’. The museum grew incrementally from its first foundation as the Museum of Manufactures after Prince Albert’s Great Exhibition of 1851. The first design for the museum at its current site was by Gottfried Semper, but the plan was rejected as being too expensive. And so over the years the facilities grew incrementally and according to to haphazard plans. In the 1890s, eight architects were invited to submit proposals for a grand scheme completing the site under a unified architectural plan.

The judges cited this plan, by John Belcher, as the most original of the eight submissions. It’s a splendid composition in high Edwardian neo-baroque. The duality of the main domes is a particular confident touch, and harks back to Greenwich. Belcher’s baroque conception was not just an external factor: his interiors featured vast, sweeping spaces that would have been impressively monumental and reflecting the power and influence of the British Empire at its presumed cultural zenith.

“Although unsuccesful in the competition,” writes Iain Boyd Whyte of Edinburgh University, “this project attracted considerable praise in the professional journals for the plasticity of the main street facade and for its grand, Michelangelesque domes.” While the judges appreciated Belcher’s design, they worried about the cost of its execution, and awarded first prize to Aston Webb instead. His scheme was inaugurated in 1899 by the Queen-Empress, who renamed the institution ‘the Victoria & Albert Museum’ simultaneously.

I wonder if Belcher’s design would have gone better with the neighbouring Brompton Oratory, or if the Oratory benefits from having the V&A in a differing, brick-based style.

Published at 10:10 pm on Wednesday 9 February 2011. Categories: Architecture Great Britain Tags: , , , .
Comments

Good to see you last Sunday, Andrew!

I’ve been going to that part of London every week since I was eleven, and I’ve never heard it referred to as “Albertopolis”.

— Oliver 11 Feb 2011 7:19 pm

Likewise!

Well it’s a bit like calling Scotland “Caledonia” — it’s not exactly the everyday name for the place.

— Andrew Cusack 11 Feb 2011 7:25 pm

Well, if I want to know anything, I check Wikipedia, and they, of course, validate the existence of “Albertopolis”. According to this always-authoritative soure [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertopolis], the term fell into disuse after the Prince died, but was then revived in the 1960s by architects.
Jolly good post, old bean.

— Steve M 11 Feb 2011 8:19 pm

I have always known the place as “Albertopolis” due to the large number of edifices named after the Prince Consort in the area- but I am not a Londoner.

— K. Dontoh 14 Feb 2011 11:42 pm
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