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14-653: Albertopolis is the nickname given to the area centred on Exhibition Road in London , named after Prince Albert , consort of Queen Victoria . It contains many educational and cultural sites. It lies in the former village of Brompton in Middlesex , renamed as South Kensington , split between the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster (the border running along Imperial College Road ), and

28-546: The Natural History Museum . The road gets its name from the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was held just inside Hyde Park at the northern end of the road. After the central road in the area, Queen's Gate , it is the second thoroughfare in what was once Albertopolis . It provides access to many nationally significant institutions, including: A design competition for plans of how to improve

42-523: The 1950s rear extension to the Science Museum are all aligned on this axis, which cannot be seen on the ground. This regular geometric alignment of Albertopolis can be observed readily only from the balconies of the Queen's Tower (very rarely open to visitors), although the northern part can be glimpsed from the top floor of the Science Museum. The closest tube station is South Kensington , linked to

56-469: The Imperial College student newspaper Felix reported that the college was seeking permission of Westminster City Council to develop part of the lawn into a three-storey modular building, however this has not come to pass. A weekly farmer's market is held on Tuesdays, and Queen's Lawn was also the site of a world record attempt for the largest jelly mosaic. A diagonal path was built across

70-608: The area bordered by Cromwell Road to the south and Kensington Road to the north. Institutions in and around Albertopolis include: The following were originally institutions in their own right: Institutions formerly in Albertopolis include: More recent additions to Albertopolis include: Following the advice of Prince Albert the area was purchased by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 with

84-729: The area, the National Art Library , in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Dana Centre , part of the Science Museum, and Imperial College's Abdus Salam Library , located on Queen's Lawn . Exhibition Road Exhibition Road is a street in South Kensington , London which is home to several major museums and academic establishments, including the Victoria and Albert Museum , the Science Museum and

98-745: The buildings threatened was the Imperial Institute , designed by T. E. Collcutt . There is a central axis between the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens to the north and the central portal of the south façade of the Natural History Museum. The Royal Albert Hall, Royal College of Music, the former tower of the otherwise-demolished Imperial Institute (now the Queen's Tower of Imperial College London) and

112-582: The centre of Imperial College London 's South Kensington campus, next to the Queen's Tower and immediately to the north of Imperial College Road . It provides an open space of 1,600 sq metres, and is surrounded by the Abdus Salam Library , and the Sherfield administration, Chemistry , and Skempton buildings. It is often the site of college events, including student bands, fairs, and balls, as well as student activism. In April 2006,

126-704: The museums by the South Kensington Subway . On 4 May 1885, the District Railway opened South Kensington Subway , a pedestrian subway (a tiled tunnel), running from the station beneath the length of Exhibition Road, giving sheltered access to the newly built museums for a toll of 1 penny . The subway was originally intended to go as far as the Royal Albert Hall, but the construction of the Imperial Institute meant

140-737: The profits made from the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was held in a site in Hyde Park nearby to the north-east. This is commemorated in the name of the principal north–south street laid out on their estate, Exhibition Road. Prince Albert was a driving force behind the Great Exhibition and President of the Royal Commission, and the name "Albertopolis" seems to have been coined in the 1850s to celebrate and somewhat satirise his role in Victorian cultural life. After his death

154-433: The street's design to reflect its cultural importance was held in 2003 by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea . The competition was won by the architectural firm Dixon Jones for a shared space scheme for the road and surrounding streets which would give pedestrians greater priority whilst still allow some vehicular traffic at a reduced speed. The project also aimed to improve the artistic and architectural merit of

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168-414: The streetscape. The scheme was completed ahead of the 2012 London Olympics . Since the completion of the revised streetscape, its design has been criticised for increasing the accident rate in the locale, with reported conflict between motor vehicles and pedestrians due to the unified surface design across Exhibition Road. Queen%27s Lawn The Queen's Lawn is a green lawned area situated at

182-497: The term fell into disuse, and the area was more widely referred to as South Kensington . It was revived by architectural historians in the 1960s and popularised by the nascent conservation movement to bring attention to the complex of public Victorian buildings and the surrounding houses built on the Commissioners' estate, that were threatened with demolition by the expansion and redevelopment plans of Imperial College. Among

196-524: The tunnel emerged at the Science Museum where it exits onto Exhibition Road. Although it had cost £42,614 to construct (approximately £5.81 million today), it was closed on 10 November 1886 and afterwards was opened only occasionally for special museum events. Originally only opened during exhibitions in South Kensington, it was opened to the public free of charge in 1908. The subway is Grade II listed. There are also three research libraries in

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