Royal Festival Hall, London

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The way this building and others on the South Bank were lit up was very cool.  I just liked the pretty colours in the night sky.   The South Bank is pretty touristy even on chilly nights.  Still the lights passed the time while waiting for the bus to arrive.

From Wikipedia:

"The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected (in April 1988). The London Philharmonic Orchestra performs the majority of its London concerts in the hall.

The foundation stone was laid in 1949 by Clement Attlee, then Prime Minister, on the site of the former Lion Brewery, built in 1837.  The original plan was that Arturo Toscanini would conduct the opening concerts, but he was unwell, and the inaugural concerts were conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent and Sir Adrian Boult.  The hall was the venue for the 1960 Eurovision Song Contest, hosted by Katie Boyle. The first general manager was T E Bean who contributed greatly to the early success of the Festival Hall.

The hall's design is unashamedly Modernist, the Festival's commissioning architect (Hugh Casson) having taken the decision to appoint only young architects. It was designed by Leslie Martin, Peter Moro and Robert Matthew from the LCC's Architects' Department; Martin was just 39 when he was appointed to lead the design team in late 1948. Martin designed the structure as an 'egg in a box', a term he used to describe the separation of the curved auditorium space from the surrounding building and the noise and vibration of the adjacent railway viaduct. Sir Thomas Beecham used similar imagery, calling the building a 'giant chicken coop'.

The building was substantially altered in 1964 by adding the foyers and terraces to the river side of the building and more dressing rooms to the rear. Alterations to the facades facing the river removed the playful Scandinavian Modernism of the building's primary public face in favour of a plainer and hard-edged style. The building's original entrance sequence was much compromised by these changes and the later additions of raised concrete walkways around the building to serve the neighbouring Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and The Hayward, built in 1967/8 and also part of Southbank Centre.

The building underwent a substantial renovation between 2005 and 2007 led by Allies and Morrison Architects aimed at improving the poor acoustics (which Simon Rattle said made performers 'lose the will to live'), production access and flexibility of the auditorium and the general quality of fabric, entrance spaces and cafe and the layouts of the foyers. The interior of the concert hall space was almost entirely intact until this re-modelling, which saw its stage canopy and walls rebuilt in plainer more rectangular forms. This was carried out in the face of opposition from conservationists, led by the Twentieth Century Society. While musicians report improvements in their own experience of the acoustic from the stage perspective, some audience members report disappointment that renovations have failed to improve the acoustics of the hall, largely due to conservation imperatives which are noted by the acoustic developers."