Culture
The South Bank is a significant arts and entertainment district. The Southbank Centre comprises the Royal Festival Hall, the Queen Elizabeth Hall and The Hayward. The Royal National Theatre and BFI Southbank are located adjacent to the east, but are not part of the centre. County Hall is no longer used as the seat of London government and has been converted to house the Sea Life London Aquarium, the London Marriott Hotel County Hall, the London Film Museum, and is the location of the London Eye. The OXO Tower Wharf is located towards the eastern end of South Bank, and houses gallery@oxo, shops and boutiques, and the OXO Tower Restaurant run by Harvey Nichols.
Cultural organisations situated near to the South Bank include The Old Vic Theatre which has been under the artistic direction of Kevin Spacey since 2003, the Old Vic Tunnels which operates under the artistic direction of Hamish Jenkinson, and the Young Vic which specialises in giving opportunities to young actors and directors. IWM London (Imperial War Museum) is also near the South Bank, hosting exhibitions from the first world war to the present day. The Florence Nightingale Museum is situated close by, next to Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital. Coin Street Community Centre host exhibitions throughout the year.
Part of the South Bank Centre known as the under-croft, has been used by the skateboarding community since the early seventies. Originally an architectural dead-spot, it has become a home of British skateboarding. The size of the under-croft has been reduced in recent years and was supposed to be returned to original size. This now seems unlikely and the future of the whole space is completely unsure at present. Part of the South Bank Centre has been turned into shops looking out over the river.
The South Bank is a central location in the 1952 comedy film The Happy Family which is set around the Festival of Britain.
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Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“If you’re anxious for to shine in the high esthetic line as a man
of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant
them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a
transcendental kind.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“As the end of the century approaches, all our culture is like the culture of flies at the beginning of winter. Having lost their agility, dreamy and demented, they turn slowly about the window in the first icy mists of morning. They give themselves a last wash and brush-up, their ocellated eyes roll, and they fall down the curtains.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil,—to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than as a member of society. I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.”
—Henry David David (1817–1862)