Because it was about hope and the future, the Conservatives couldn't wait to dismantle the Festival of Britain when they came back to power in 1951.
One of the structures lost in the hurry was the Dome of Discovery, which has been credited with giving the public a taste for modern architecture. It was designed by Ralph Tubbs and, says Wikipedia, the consulting engineers were Freeman Fox & Partners, in particular Oleg Kerensky and Gilbert Roberts.
Kerensky is a familiar name, and it turns out that Oleg was indeed the son of Alexander Kerensky, who overthrew the Tsar in Russia in 1917 but was in turn supplanted by the Bolsheviks.
Oleg's mother Olga divorced Alexander in 1939 and lived for many years in Southport, dying there in 1975.
Oleg himself worked as an engineer on the Sydney Harbour Bridge and designed many road bridges and other structures in Britain. He died in 1984.
You will find Oleg's parents, his brother Gleb and Gleb's wife all buried at Putney Vale Cemetery in London.
Oleg Kerensky's son, also called Oleg, played his grandfather Alexander Kerensky in the 1981 film Reds.
"Because it was about hope and the future, the Conservatives couldn't wait to dismantle the Festival of Britain when they came back to power in 1951."
ReplyDeleteA casual reader might think that you were just indulging in political diatribe there, but a recent BBC documentary about the Festival of Britain shows that you are, if anything, being a bit charitable. Churchill and others in the Cabinet responded at an almost visceral level against Modern Architecture and the whole ethos of the place. Even the open air cafes were regarded as unsuitable/not British. The entire place (except for the Festival Hall) was demolished within 4 months of it closing, and parts of it were deliberately destroyed in order to prevent it being saved or reassembled anywhere else. Dan Cruickshank did a documentary on the disappearance and re-discovery of the iconic Skylon, but the authoritarian barbarism went a lot further than that.
All I see in the article and comment is that the Conservatives are no good for this country.
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