page_title: Southbank Centre
section_title: 1950s
hierarchical_section_title: Southbank Centre / History / 1950s
caption_attribution_description: English: Visitors to the Festival of Britain in front of the Dome of Discovery. (Southbank Centre Archive/Mrs Holland)
context_page_description: Southbank Centre is a complex of artistic venues in London, England, on the South Bank of the River Thames.
  It comprises three main performance venues, together with the Hayward Gallery, and is Europe’s largest centre for the arts. It attracted 4,451,934 visitors during 2018. Over two thousand paid performances of music, dance and literature are staged at Southbank Centre each year, as well as over two thousand free events and an education programme, in and around the performing arts venues. In addition, three to six major art exhibitions are presented at Hayward Gallery yearly, and National Touring Exhibitions reach over 100 venues across the UK.
context_section_description: The history of Southbank Centre starts with the Festival of Britain, held in 1951. In what was described as "a tonic for the nation" by Herbert Morrison, the Labour Party government minister responsible for the event, the Festival of Britain aimed to demonstrate Britain’s recovery from World War II by showcasing the best in science, technology, arts and industrial design. It ran from May to September 1951, and by June the following year most of it had been dismantled, following the victory of Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party in the general election of 1951. The Royal Festival Hall is the only building from the Festival of Britain that survives.
caption: Visitors to the Festival of Britain in front of the Dome of Discovery, 1951
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