In March 1996, Ian Ritchie Architects won a competition for the design of a permanent concert platform in the Crystal Palace Park, London.
Our concept for the concert platform was developed from an understanding and recognition of the primary importance of the Paxton landscape. We considered that the setting was both rich and complex, and that a simple structure was more appropriate, not as a contrast, but to be seen as a minimal intervention. Its simplicity belies the complex performance required of it, and also denies its appearance as a conventional building.
Our design embodies four principles: natural colour as a statement of defining modernity’s relationship to landscape; gravitas as a statement of permanence expressed through the perceived mass of the material; levitas as a statement of the way we can build sensitively in and with landscape, and is expressed by a composition in equilibrium touching the ground along a fine line; simplicity expressed through a single material - self-weathering steel - colour and a continuous surface.
The concert platform is practical, robust, as resistant to vandalism as possible, economic and requires very low maintenance.
The first concert performance took place in August 1997.