TheDome of Discovery was a temporary exhibition building designed byarchitectRalph Tubbs for theFestival of Britain celebrations which took place onLondon'sSouth Bank in 1951, alongside the River Thames.[1] The consulting engineers wereFreeman Fox & Partners, in particularOleg Kerensky andGilbert Roberts.
Like the adjacentSkylon, the dome became an iconic structure for the public and helped popularise modern design and architectural style in a Britain still suffering throughpost-war austerity. As twin icons, the forms of the Skylon and Dome of Discovery were related to those of theTrylon andPerisphere of the1939 New York World's Fair.[2] Controversially, after the Festival closed, the dome was demolished and its materials sold as scrap. The site was cleared for reuse, and is now the location of theJubilee Gardens, near theLondon Eye.
Thedome had a diameter of 365 feet (111 m) and stood 93 feet (28 m) tall, making it at the time the largest dome in the world. It had a long escalator as its dramatic entrance, with the dome itself made out of aluminium.[3] Construction was contracted toHorseley Ironworks ofTipton,[4] with fabrication partly sub-contracted to Structural and Mechanical Development Engineers Ltd ofSlough.[5] It was erected by Horseley on a site designed and prepared byCostain Group[6] fromconcrete andaluminium in amodernist style and housed many of the festival attractions. Internally the dome included a number of galleries on various levels housing exhibitions on the theme of discovery.
The theme of the exhibition in the Dome of Discovery was "British initiative in exploration and discovery is as strong as it ever was."[7]
The exhibition was divided into the following sections:
Keith Vaughan was commissioned to paint a 50-foot mural on the theme of discovery. No photographic record of this mural exists, although a sketch was included inSotheby's 21–22 November 2017 sale.[8]
In response to a public statement byJude Kelly about the destiny of the Skylon, an investigation was launched by theFront Row programme onBBC Radio 4. The result was broadcast on 8 March 2011, revealing that the Skylon and the roof of the Dome of Discovery were sold for scrap toGeorge Cohen and Sons, scrap metal dealers ofWood Lane,White City, and dismantled at their works in Bidder Street,Canning Town, on the banks of theRiver Lea. Some of the metal fragments were then turned into a series of commemorativepaper-knives and artefacts. The inscriptions on the paper-knife read"600"[n 1] and"Made from the aluminium alloy roof sheets which covered the Dome of Discovery at the Festival of Britain, South Bank. The Dome, Skylon and 10 other buildings on the site, were dismantled by George Cohen and Sons and Company LTD during 6 months of 1952."[9]
51°30′13″N0°07′06″W / 51.5037°N 0.1183°W /51.5037; -0.1183