Museum of 51

Published Categorised as History, Retro Stuff 1 Comment on Museum of 51

I went to see the Museum of 51 exhib­i­tion at the Royal Fest­iv­al Hall a while back, which is about the Fest­iv­al of Britain. Basic­ally it was a fest­iv­al in 1951 to celeb­rate 100 years since the Great Exhib­i­tion and cheer people up in grey, rationed post-war London. As well as films, shows, fairs and so on, there were shows of hous­ing and interi­ors, to show people what they could look forward to after rebuild­ing and the end of ration­ing (everything avail­able for sale in WWII was simple and util­it­ari­an and rationed). My dad went to pretty much all the events, seeing as they were mostly around the corner from him in Batter­sea.

There were a lot of differ­ent things there- people’s memor­ies, films of the events, displays of differ­ent attrac­tions from the fest­iv­al, but the thing which partic­u­larly inter­ested me was the design section.

Museum of 51

There was this 50s room, which I partic­u­larly liked. The origin­al ones were to show people all of the excit­ing home design they would be able to buy once mater­i­als were no longer rationed. Everything is brightly coloured and cheer­ful look­ing, which figures.

Museum of 51

I’m not sure I’d want to live with that wall­pa­per though. My dad has the dining set and side­board of the furniture, and I have the coffee table version of the little tables (mine is a long round-edged rect­angle). It’s a great table.

Museum of 51

Let’s lounge around in our luridly furnished room read­ing meta­phys­ic­al poetry. I love the covers of this line of Penguin poetry books.

Museum of 51

They had this map, show­ing what people in differ­ent towns were appar­ently talk­ing about in 1951. Here’s the SE. Chath­am docks, Oxford Aris­totle, no surprises there. Most of them were just the local indus­tries.

Museum of 51

Aber­deen- philo­sophy and fish

Museum of 51

I so would go to this. The actu­al Sher­lock Holmes museum in London is a crappy tour­ist trap.

Museum of 51

I love the graph­ic design from the 50s in the UK, it’s really play­ful. (Not that I got a great photo of this.

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