Other Stories: Alternative Perspectives on Design

Through the use of digital modelling and fabrication techniques, DSDHA’s has manipulated the model of the Memorial to reveal the hidden complex of brick vaults and arches that have dutifully supported the golden statue of Prince Albert since it was ceremonially seated in 1875. By allowing multiple viewpoints to converge, this distortion to the Memorial’s form hints at the ability of digital technologies to enhance our experience of the city, allowing access (either physical, virtual or both) to forgotten, inaccessible and underused spaces, which could be adapted to accommodate cultural uses, including much needed rehearsal space and artists’ studios in the city. 

This is the ambition at the heart of DSDHA’s proposals for the public realm surrounding the Royal Albert Hall and Albert Memorial; a project undertaken as part of a Built Environment Research Fellowship, awarded to DSDHA by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. 

Our scheme reimagines Albertopolis as a ‘cultural landscape’, as opposed to a mere assemblage of world-class institutions. Within this new setting, all the venues, the parks and – just as importantly – their interstitial spaces both above and below the surface, will make historic narratives and contemporary programmes visible and accessible to the diverse audiences drawn to the site.

Photography: DSDHA

Glove: The National Archives