Visiting dignitaries JLP01_08_063426
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COMMONWEALTH INSTITUTE, KENSINGTON HIGH STREET, KENSINGTON AND CHELSEA, GREATER LONDON. A group of MPs from Sierra Leone visiting the Commonwealth Institute during the final stages of its construction.
Laing built the Commonwealth Institute between October 1960 and October 1962 to replace the former Imperial Institute that was to be demolished to make way for new facilities at Imperial College. The building consisted of a four-storey administrative block housing a library, restaurant, board room and conference hall and a separate two-storey b lock containing a cinema with an art gallery above, but the focus of the project was the exhibition hall with its hyperbolic paraboloid roof, the first of its kind constructed in Great Britain. The exhibition, designed by James Gardner, provided spaces where each of the Commonwealth nations could showcase their achievements and characteristics, primarily to school children as teaching aids to enliven history and geography lessons
Copyright © Historic England Archive
Media ID 24320090
Date: 8th February 2022
Copyright Status: Copyrighted Work
Source: Historic England Archive
Owner URL: https://images.historicenglandservices.org.uk/
Credit: A© Historic England Archive. Joh
Image Size: 4646 x 4642 Pixels
Filesize is 4.80MB
Associated Categories: Building the Commonwealth Institute
Keywords: 1960s, africa, clothing, fashion, people