The Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall approached Architect David Leon and Interior Designer Shaun Baker to undertake a full appraisal and overview of the Hall, including a redesign of the ticket office, foyers, bars and function spaces along with the potential integration of a bequeathed art collection.

In October 1985 Charles Graham-Dixon, then Vice-President of the Corporation of the Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences, offered to lend his personal collection of paintings to be exhibited at the Hall. On his death in 1986, thirty-three paintings from his collection were bequeathed to the Royal Albert Hall, half of which are on permanent display in the Prince of Wales Room. The paintings dating from c1500 to 1820 portray a range of subjects and are mainly from the 17th century schools of the Netherlands, Italy and one English work by artists including Pieter de Hooch and Jacob van Ruisdael.

A proposal was produced that not only illustrated how the artwork could be securely displayed within the public spaces within the Hall but also how the reorganisation of the existing rooms would create more marketable function suites with the potential to generate higher incomes.

The ticket office and bars were redesigned to make them more fluid and open while still giving the staff an acceptable level of security. Function spaces were redesigned with more appropriate fixtures and finishes and lighting schemes designed to replace the not so ‘temporary’ scaffold pole arrangements that proliferated throughout the Hall.