In March 1996, Ian Ritchie Architects won the competition for the design of a permanent concert platform in 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 within which the concert platform would be located. We considered that the setting was rich and complex, and that a simple structure was more appropriate, not as a contrast, but as a minimal intervention. Nevertheless, its simplicity belies the complex performance required of it, and also avoids its appearance being seen 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, resistant to vandalism, economic and requires very low maintenance. It is placed in a slightly enlarged lake. Its outer surface is made entirely of deep red oxidiesed Corten A steel and an oak stage, and internally with silver aluzinc panels and a blue floor.
The first concert performance took place in August 1997.