VISITOR ATTRACTIONS

Website: www.alva.org.uk (The Association of Leading Visitor Attractions)

The London Dungeon

The London Dungeon is a visitor attraction.

Location: 28-34 Tooley Street, SE1 2SZ

The London Eye

David Marks's (1952-2017) father had been a nomadic polymath who had fought in Israel's War of Independence. At the Architectural Association he was exposed the socially useful and utopian architecture. He admired the work of Buckminster Fuller. In Julia Barfield he found a like-minded soul. They married in 1981. After graduating they established an architectural model making business. Their principal client was Richard Rogers. In 1989 Marks established his own architectural practice. Barfield, who had been working for Norman Foster, joined him soon afterwards

Marks admired engineers such as Brunel, Joseph Paxton, and the pier designer Eugenius Birch.

Their practice was hit by the early 1990s recession when a science park that they had designed was cancelled. In 1993 they were getting by designing kitchen extensions. The Sunday Times staged a memorial for a monument to mark the start of the new millennium. There was no guarantee of the winning design being built. Marks and Barfield concluded that it might be able to furnish them with some publicity. They considered a tower but concluded that it would be compared to the Eiffel Tower. Their entry proposed a variant of a Ferris wheel. Barfield thought it should be in Hyde Park on the site where the Great Exhibition of 1851 had been held. However, he agreed in Barfield's suggestion of the South Bank site of what had been the Festival of Britain of 1951. In part, it was inspired by his love of engineering. The competition did not lead anywhere since the judges decide that none of the entries was good enough. However, the couple embraced their idea. The remortgaged their home and set up the Millennium Wheel Company. A neighbour was a senior figure in British Airways. He persuaded the company to furnish 600,000 to finance an application to Lambeth Council. In 1996 all of the necessary bureaucratic hurdles had been surmounted and planning permission was granted. An 85m construction budget had to be raised. The airline and Madame Tussaud's each furnished a third of this. For aesthetic reasons the architects then reduced the number of viewing pods from 60 to 32. A week before construction was due to begin the contractor stated that 10m would have been shaved off the budget. Marks concluded that the changes would make the wheel look like a fairground ride. The demand was refused and a new contractor found. In order to retain the architects vision while making savings the height of the Wheel was reduced from 500ft. to 443ft..

The Wheel was constructed horizontally on eight barges that were moored on the Thames. It then became the largest ever structure to be raised from a horizontal position to a vertical one. During the first attempt one of the cables broke. Richard Branson, the head of Virgin Airways, which was then in keen rivalry with British Airways had a balloon fly over from which a banner hung that declared BA can t get it up!

In 2005 British Airways sold its interest in the London Eye to Madame Tussaud s. The architects sold their interest to the company the following year. Marks and Barfield lost managerial control of it as a result. However, they were able to ensure that 1% of revenues went to the local community in perpetuity.

Location: Upper Ground, SE1 7PB

See Also: COLUMNS The Monument

Website: www.londoneye.com https://marksbarfield.com

Madame Tussauds

Anna Maria Grosholtz's mother became the housekeeper of Dr Curtius, a Swiss physician who was skilled at making wax models of body organs. The doctor identified in the girl a talent that was a nascent version of his own and started to train her in wax modelling. In 1766 Curtius and his household moved to Paris, where he established himself as a waxworks showman. For a time, Anna Maria lived at Versailles. During the French Revolution her head was shaved in preparation for her being guillotined. She was reprieved. In 1794 Dr Curtius died. He bequeathed his collection to Anna Maria. The following year Mademoiselle Grosholtz married a Monsieur Tussaud.

In 1806 Madame Tussaud started touring England with her exhibits. She did so for 27 years. In 1833 she settled her business in London. She identified and exploited the Early Victorian public's desire for rational recreation rather than just mere entertainment. Charles Dickens found that he was unable to accept the cultural pretensions that she sought to claim for her attractions. He used the character of Mrs Jarley in his novel The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) to attack her flexible approach towards the truth. Punch magazine derided her Adjoining Room as The Chamber of Horrors . The name stuck.

The Tussaud family retained ownership of the business until 1967.

In 1960 the photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones was about to marry Princess Margaret. His new celebrity had prompted Madame Tussauds to make a waxwork of him. Three men who were living in Holland Road in West Kensington decided to relocate it. They examined the attraction's exterior. They were unable to see a way of breaking into it. That evening they went to a cinema. The film that was being screened was The Day They Robbed The Bank of England. From this they realised that it was easier to break out of a building rather than break into one. One of them entered the building close to closing time. He secreted himself and then admitted his accomplices to it. They took the statue to their flat. They returned it by placing it in a phone box near The Savoy on the Embankment.

Tussaud s benefitted from the publicity.

Location: Holland Road, W14 8BB

Marylebone Road, NW1 5HT (red, orange)

Website: www.madametussauds.com/london

David Backhouse 2024