FOLAR
Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading

Past Talks

Friends of the Landscape Archive at Reading

Past Talks

Almost from the outset FOLAR has - with generous permission from our speakers - recorded virtually all the talks we have held at symposia and online.There are currently over 130 recordings available under Past Talks and Specials. The Past Talks section covers topics ranging from the Festival Pleasure Gardens at Battersea Park, Susan Jellicoe’s photographs, The Open Spaces Society, working on Byker in Newcastle with Ralph Erskine to landscape designs that promote human health and well-being.

There are a number of talks that focus on women landscape designers, from Fanny Wilkinson, Marjory Lady Allen of Hurtwood, Brenda Colvin, and Sylvia Crowe in Bristol, to Elisabeth Beazley, Diana Armstrong Bell and other contemporary landscape architects in the can…

Our speakers include past presidents of the Landscape Institute - Brian Clouston, Hal Moggridge, Tim Gale; landscape academics - Ed Bennis, Jan Woudstra, Alan Powers, Luca Csepely-Knorr, Catharine Ward Thompson; historians - Elain Harwood, John Boughton, Katrina Navikas; practitioners – Annie Coombs; Neil Chapman, Jennette Emery-Wallis, Paul Rabbitts, Ian Baggott,  young researchers – Joy Burgess, Sally Watson, Karen Fitzsimon and many more.

The Specials section includestalks celebrating the life and works of two of the Institute’s significant practitioners – Bran Clouston and Hal Moggridge;  and a series of twenty one talks on the C20 designed landscapes that were added to the Historic England register in 2021.

So how can anybody find anything in all these recordings?  The quickest way is to use the search box – type in a strong and simple key word linked with what you are searching for, eg play, Jellicoe, Sweden, and hopefully you will find something that is useful for you.

 

The Festival of Britain 1951 and Landscape Design - FOLAR Symposium

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

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, this symposium in 2021 marks the achievements of this young profession and its role in celebrating post war Britain. It accompanies the Museum of English Rural Life's online exhibition '51 Voices', an exploration and celebration of 51 Objects at the museum which reflect the ideas and products of 1951, the year the museum itself was established. The objects include items from the Festival of Britain's Country Pavilion, such as Michael O’Connell’s wonderful wall hanging celebrating the agriculture of Britain.

Video

See the full video at Festival Of Britain video or click on the highlighted (bold) timestamps below to jump directly to the related section on Festival Of Britain video.

1.11 Introduction to 1951 and MERL’s 51 Voices by Guy Baxter

5.00 Brodie McAllister Chair, Introduction to symposium and speakers

7.14 Topophilia on show: an introduction to the nationwide Festival of Britain 1951 by Dr Harriet Atkinson. Dr Atkinson has been involved in celebrating successive anniversaries of the FoB and discusses here the organisation and broad precedents for the 1951 festival on the south bank and in museums, travelling ships and other venues supporting a range of activities nationwide.

43.22 The Festival of Britain site at South Bank: Sir Peter Shepheard and Peter Youngman by Dr Alan Powers. Max Nicholson’s ideas published in 1931 for making Britain habitable - politically, economically and socially in his ‘National Plan for Great Britain’, sowed the seeds for when Nicholson was involved with the organising committee for the Festival of Britain, just short of two decades and a war later. The South Bank exhibition, within eyesight of parliament, was where 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.

1:17:30 The Festival Pleasure Gardens, Battersea Park by Helen Brown. A special company was established to design and manage the gardens from 1948 with James Gardener appointed as chief designer for this light hearted initiative which proved to be so popular with the public. Russell Page was landscape architect for parts of these temporary and now little-known gardens which extended over 37 acres.

2:04:28 Phoenix from the Ashes: The ‘Live Architecture’ Exhibition and the Lansbury Estate by Camilla Beresford. The temporary and permanent exhibitions on the Lansbury Estate in blitz devastated Poplar, in East London. It is now almost forgotten. (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. Camilla takes us on a guided tour through the development.

Chaired by LI President Elect, Brodie McAllister, introduced by Guy Baxter.
Speakers: Dr Harriet Atkinson, Dr Alan Powers, Helen Brown, Camilla Beresford.
November 2021 online with The MERL

Links and references

Annabel Downs