48-721: The Shell Centre in London is the global headquarters of oil major Shell plc . It is located on Belvedere Road in the London Borough of Lambeth . It is a prominent feature on the South Bank of the River Thames near County Hall , and now forms the backdrop to the London Eye . The original Shell Centre comprised the tower building and three now-demolished adjoining nine-storey wings (collectively formerly known as
96-662: A British national museum. The exhibition, which was viewed by over 80,000 people, featured themed rooms with photographs of the royal family, war heros, authors, composers, and celebrities. The exhibition traveled to the United States and was displayed as 600 Faces by Beaton 1928-69 at the Museum of the City of New York in 1969. A week before the New York opening, Beaton photographed Andy Warhol and members of his Factory as
144-608: A compelling model or scene and looking for the perfect shutter-release moment. He was a photographer for the British edition of Vogue in 1931 when George Hoyningen-Huene , photographer for the French Vogue travelled to England with his new friend Horst . Horst himself would begin to work for French Vogue in November of that year. The exchange and cross pollination of ideas between this collegial circle of artists across
192-613: A cream Dior dress for her 21st birthday in 1951, which became one of the most iconic royal portraits of the 20th century. During the Second World War , Beaton was first posted to the Ministry of Information and given the task of recording images from the home front. During this assignment he captured one of the most enduring images of British suffering during the war, that of 3-year-old Blitz victim Eileen Dunne recovering in hospital, clutching her beloved teddy bear. When
240-467: A last minute addition to the show. After the war, Beaton tackled the Broadway stage, designing sets , costumes, and lighting for a 1946 revival of Lady Windermere's Fan , in which he also acted. His costumes for Lerner and Loewe 's My Fair Lady (1956) were highly praised. This led to two Lerner and Loewe film musicals, Gigi (1958) and My Fair Lady (1964), each of which earned Beaton
288-424: A lifelong passion for performing arts and in particular ballet and operetta. The Beaton programme is considered to be almost the final words on an era of "Bright Young Things" whose sunset had taken place by the time of the abdication of Edward VIII . Beaton commented specifically on Wallis Simpson (later titled The Duchess of Windsor after her marriage to the former King Edward VIII ). The Duchess of Windsor
336-651: A popular model which was renowned for being an ideal piece of equipment to learn on. Beaton's nanny began teaching him the basics of photography and developing film. He would often get his sisters and mother to sit for him. When he was sufficiently proficient, he would send the photos off to London society magazines, often writing under a pen name and "recommending" the work of Beaton. Beaton attended Harrow School , and then, despite having little or no interest in academia, moved on to St John's College , Cambridge , and studied history, art and architecture. Beaton continued his photography and, through his university contacts, got
384-744: A portrait depicting the Duchess of Malfi published in Vogue . It was actually George "Dadie" Rylands – "a slightly out-of-focus snapshot of him as Webster's Duchess of Malfi standing in the sub-aqueous light outside the men's lavatory of the ADC Theatre at Cambridge." Beaton left Cambridge without a degree in 1925. After a short time in the family timber business, he worked with a cement merchant in Holborn . This resulted in "an orgy of photography at weekends" so he decided to strike out on his own. Under
432-637: A restrictive covenant in favour of Shell that restricts any building on the part of the site directly between the Shell Tower and the River Thames. The naming of the Shell Centre buildings perpetuated the split of the Festival site into distinct Upstream and Downstream areas, separated by the railway viaduct approach to Hungerford Bridge . During construction, parts of abandoned works for
480-510: A space dedicated to amateur productions – had full fly tower facilities. The courtyard of the Upstream Building included two notable sculptures: The public realm of the Upstream Building was steadily degraded over the years, with the generous space between the columns of the entrance from York Road enclosed to enlarge the foyers. Textured paving in contrasting colours was installed to assist partially sighted pedestrians navigate
528-547: A year for several years to come." From 1930 to 1945, Beaton leased Ashcombe House in Wiltshire, where he entertained many notable figures. In 1947, he bought Reddish House , set in 2.5 acres of gardens, approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) to the east in Broad Chalke . Here he transformed the interior, adding rooms on the eastern side, extending the parlour southwards, and introducing many new fittings. Greta Garbo
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#1732780264958576-410: Is the outflow point of the Shell Centre's air conditioning system, which sucks in river water from just outside County Hall and sends it via a pipe within a bolt iron tunnel (built exactly like a tube railway tunnel), to a point convergent with the outfall, beyond which both the intake pipe and the outflow pipes continue under the embankment and Jubilee Gardens to the basement of the tower. From here
624-512: The Academy Award for Best Costume Design . He also designed the period costumes for the 1970 film On a Clear Day You Can See Forever . His additional Broadway credits include The Grass Harp (1952), The Chalk Garden (1955), Saratoga (1959), Tenderloin (1960), and Coco (1969). He was the recipient of four Tony Awards . He designed the sets and costumes for a production of Puccini's last opera Turandot , first used at
672-598: The Channel and the Atlantic gave rise to the look of style and sophistication for which the 1930s are known. Beaton is known for his fashion photographs and society portraits. He worked as a staff photographer for Vanity Fair and Vogue in addition to photographing celebrities in Hollywood. In 1938, he inserted some tiny-but-still-legible anti-Semitic phrases (including the word ' kike ') into American Vogue at
720-558: The Laing Art Gallery , Newcastle-upon-Tyne . Cecil Beaton: Theatre of War at the Imperial War Museum , London: major retrospective of Beaton's war photography, held from 6 September 2012 – 1 January 2013. Cecil Beaton at Home: Ashcombe & Reddish at The Salisbury Museum, Wiltshire, from 23 May- 19 September 2014, a biographical retrospective focussing on Beaton's two Wiltshire houses, brought together for
768-542: The Torre Velasca in Milan . Facilities for staff were lavish by the standards of the time, and the basement of the building was designed with a full size swimming pool and a spacious gymnasium. The basement also originally housed a rifle range, snooker room, a small supermarket for staff and a host of other facilities. Until 1998, there was also a fully equipped theatre (designed by Cecil Beaton ) which – unusually for
816-508: The Waterloo and Whitehall Railway were discovered. This was a prototype for a proposed pneumatic railway that would have run under the River Thames linking Waterloo and Charing Cross . Digging was started in 1865, but was stopped in 1868, due to financial problems. Visible in the Thames at low tide just in line with the tower as water turbulence at one point a few feet into the river bed
864-493: The "Upstream Building"). The original development also included the "Downstream Building", which had the same nine-storey slab block form but was separated from the Upstream Building by the railway viaduct between Charing Cross and Waterloo East . Since 2004/05, a New Year 60-second countdown has been projected onto the Shell Centre at 11:59pm every New Year's Eve as part of the Mayor of London 's fireworks celebrations centred on
912-580: The Metropolitan Opera in New York and then at Covent Garden. Beaton designed the academic dress of the University of East Anglia . Cecil Beaton was a published and well-known diarist. In his lifetime, six volumes of diaries were published, spanning the years 1922–1974. Recently some unexpurgated material has been published. "In the published diaries, opinions are softened, celebrated figures are hailed as wonders and triumphs, whereas in
960-516: The Royal Family for official publication. Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was his favourite royal sitter, and he once pocketed her scented hankie as a keepsake from a highly successful shoot. Beaton took the famous wedding pictures of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (wearing an haute couture ensemble by the noted American fashion designer Mainbocher ). He photographed Princess Margaret in
1008-640: The Shell Tower. The staff amenities of the swimming pool and theatre in the basements have not been re-provided in the new development. The Charoux 'Motorcyclist' sculpture was reinstated on the Chicheley Street side of the development in May 2019 but (as at April 2024) Franta Belsky's 'Shell Fountain' has not yet been re-erected. 51°30′13.8″N 00°7′0.8″W / 51.503833°N 0.116889°W / 51.503833; -0.116889 Oil major Too Many Requests If you report this error to
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#17327802649581056-674: The Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.226 via cp1108 cp1108, Varnish XID 219301604 Upstream caches: cp1108 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 07:51:05 GMT Cecil Beaton Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton CBE (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist , painter, and interior designer, as well as costume designer and set designer for stage and screen. His accolades includes three Academy Awards and four Tony Awards . Beaton
1104-449: The auction house, Garner acquired Beaton's archive – excluding all portraits of the Royal Family, and the five decades of prints held by Vogue in London, Paris and New York. Garner, who had almost single-handedly invented the photographic auction, oversaw the archive's preservation and partial dispersal, so that Beaton's only tangible assets, and what he considered his life's work, would ensure him an annual income. The first of five auctions
1152-482: The centre's buildings have generally been regarded as dull. However, the extremely traditional cladding has meant that the buildings have weathered better than most of their contemporaries with concrete or aggregate faced façades or curtain wall glazing. The original interiors were luxuriously appointed, and as well as contributions from a British design team (many of whom had worked on the Festival of Britain), they included work by Ernesto Nathan Rogers who had worked on
1200-422: The complex steps and ramps of the site, but also served to deter rough sleepers and skateboarders . The Shell Centre was constructed by Sir Robert McAlpine between 1957 and 1962, to a design by Sir Howard Robertson , and the tower stands at 107 metres (351 ft) with 27 storeys (26 numbered and a mezzanine level) and extends three storeys below ground. The tower was the first London office tower to exceed
1248-543: The first time many art works and possessions from both eras of Beaton's life. The exhibition included a full-size reproduction of the murals and four-poster bed from the Circus Bedroom at Ashcombe, as well as a section of the drawing room at Reddish House. In the 1989 Australian film Darlings of the Gods , Beaton was portrayed by Shane Briant . In the 2010 series Upstairs Downstairs (series 1, episode 3), Beaton
1296-464: The former staff cafeteria into a shopping centre, and to construct a contrasting new glazed office building on the Podium Site to the south, which was then a paved open space above underground car parking. In July 2011, Shell announced that a joint venture of Canary Wharf Group and Qatari Diar had bought a virtual freehold (a 999-year lease) on the Shell Centre for £300m, and would redevelop
1344-774: The height of the Victoria Tower of the Palace of Westminster . It replaced the Midland Grand Hotel as the tallest storied building in London , and the Royal Liver Building as the tallest in the United Kingdom . On completion the building also held the record for the largest office building, by floor space, in Europe. In addition to being the headquarters for the group, it also acts as
1392-469: The image was published, America had not yet officially joined the war, but images such as Beaton's helped push the Americans to put pressure on their government to help Britain in its hour of need. Beaton had a major influence on and relationship with Angus McBean and David Bailey . McBean was a well-known portrait photographer of his era. Later in his career, his work is influenced by Beaton. Bailey
1440-741: The interview was recorded at Beaton's 17th-century home of Reddish House in Broad Chalke in Wiltshire (near Salisbury). Beaton, though frail, recalled events in his life, particularly from the 1930s and 1940s ( the Blitz ). Among the recollections were his associations with stars of Hollywood and British Royalty notably The Duke and Duchess of Windsor (whose official wedding photographs Beaton took on 3 June 1937 at relatively short notice); and official portraits of Queen Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother) and Queen Elizabeth II on her Coronation day on 2 June 1953. The interview also alluded to
1488-437: The lead in a play. She was the daughter of a Cumbrian blacksmith named Joseph Sisson and had come to London to visit her married sister. Ernest and Etty Beaton had four children – Cecil; two daughters, Nancy Elizabeth Louise Beaton (1909–99, who married Sir Hugh Smiley, Baronet ) and Barbara Jessica Beaton (1912–73, known as Baba, who married Alec Hambro); and one son, Reginald Ernest Hardy Beaton (1905–33). Cecil Beaton
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1536-485: The main offices of the following Shell businesses; refining and marketing, along with a number of functional support activities such as finance and human resources. The Shell Centre is also the head office of Shell's United Kingdom business (Shell UK Ltd.), which was formerly located in Shell Mex House . In 2004, a planning application was approved to convert the lower floors of the Upstream Building courtyard and
1584-608: The originals, Cecil can be as venomous as anyone I have ever read or heard in the most shocking of conversation" wrote their editor, Hugo Vickers . The last public interview given by Sir Cecil Beaton was in January 1980 for an edition of the BBC's radio programme Desert Island Discs . The interviewer was Roy Plomley . The recording was broadcast on Friday 1 February 1980 following the Beaton family's permission. Owing to Beaton's frailty,
1632-473: The patronage of Osbert Sitwell he put on his first exhibition in the Cooling Gallery, London. It caused quite a stir. Believing that he would meet with greater success on the other side of the Atlantic, he left for New York and slowly built up a reputation there. By the time he left, he had "a contract with Condé Nast Publications to take photographs exclusively for them for several thousand pounds
1680-549: The side of an illustration about New York society. The issue was recalled and reprinted, and Beaton was fired. Beaton returned to England, where the Queen recommended him to the Ministry of Information (MoI). He became a leading war photographer, best known for his images of the damage done by the German Blitz . His style sharpened and his range broadened, Beaton's career was restored by the war. Beaton often photographed
1728-413: The site. The tower was to be left in place, but the rest of the site was replaced by a new scheme of offices, shops and restaurants. The new development is called Southbank Place . The 9-storey ranges of the Upstream Building have now been replaced by a cluster of new predominantly glazed towers around the original Shell tower. They are considerably taller than the earlier buildings, but are all lower than
1776-718: The stretch of the Thames in front of the London Eye. The Downstream Building was disposed of by Shell in the 1990s. It has been heightened by one storey and is now a block of residential apartments known as the Whitehouse Apartments. The Shell Centre occupies part of the site cleared for the 1951 Festival of Britain . The areas closer to the River Thames now include Jubilee Gardens and the South Bank Centre . Jubilee Gardens remained undeveloped prior to its laying out as an open space, largely because of
1824-619: The water is sent through filters and heat exchangers to provide cooled air in the building. The pipes had to be specially supported on adjustable jacks, during excavation work for the extension of the Jubilee line in 1995, because of settlement during the driving of an access tunnel out from Jubilee Gardens, to the main running lines in York Road via Chicheley Street. The choice of Portland Stone cladding, and bronze framed individual upright windows were denounced by Modern Movement critics, and
1872-506: Was Stephen Tennant . Beaton's photographs of Tennant and his circle are considered some of the best representations of the Bright Young People of the twenties and thirties. Beaton's first camera was a Kodak 3A folding camera. Over the course of his career, he employed both large format cameras, and smaller Rolleiflex cameras. Beaton was never known as a highly skilled technical photographer, and instead focused on staging
1920-533: Was knighted in the 1972 New Year Honours . Two years later, he suffered a stroke that left him permanently paralysed on the right side of his body. Although he learnt to write and draw with his left hand, and had cameras adapted, Beaton became frustrated by the limitations the stroke had put upon his work. As a result of his stroke, Beaton became anxious about financial security for his old age and, in 1976, entered into negotiations with Philippe Garner , expert-in-charge of photographs at Sotheby's . On behalf of
1968-401: Was a visitor. He remained at the house until his death in 1980 and is buried in the parish church graveyard. Beaton designed book jackets (see Catherine Ives ), and costumes for charity matinees, learning the craft of photography at the studio of Paul Tanqueray , until Vogue took him on regularly in 1927. He set up his own studio, and one of his earliest clients and, later, best friends
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2016-519: Was born on 14 January 1904 in Hampstead , north London, the son of Ernest Walter Hardy Beaton (1867–1936), a prosperous timber merchant, and his wife, Esther "Etty" Sisson (1872–1962). His grandfather, Walter Hardy Beaton (1841–1904), had founded the family business of "Beaton Brothers Timber Merchants and Agents", and his father followed into the business. Ernest Beaton was an amateur actor and met his wife, Cecil's mother Esther ("Etty") when playing
2064-463: Was educated at Heath Mount School (where he was bullied by Evelyn Waugh ) and St Cyprian's School , Eastbourne , where his artistic talent was quickly recognised. Both Cyril Connolly and Henry Longhurst report in their autobiographies being overwhelmed by the beauty of Beaton's singing at the St Cyprian's school concerts. When Beaton was growing up, his nanny had a Kodak 3A Camera,
2112-738: Was held from March to April 1988 and was divided between the Fashion Institute of Technology , whose exhibit focused on Beaton's fashion photography, and the Grey Art Gallery , whose exhibit focused on photographs of his personal life and celebrities. Major exhibitions have been held at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 1968 and in 2004. The first international exhibition in thirty years, and first exhibition of his works to be held in Australia
2160-751: Was held in Bendigo, Victoria from 10 December 2005 to 26 March 2006. In October 2011, the BBC's Antiques Roadshow featured an oil portrait by Beaton of rock star Mick Jagger , whom Beaton met in the 1960s. The painting, originally sold at the Le Fevre Gallery in 1966, was valued for insurance purposes at £30,000. The Museum of the City of New York dedicated an exhibition to Cecil Beaton from October 2011 to April 2012. An exhibition celebrating The Queen's Diamond Jubilee and showing portraits of Her Majesty by Cecil Beaton, opened in October 2011 at
2208-490: Was held in 1977, the last in 1980. By the end of the 1970s, Beaton's health had faded. He died on 18 January 1980 at Reddish House , his home in Broad Chalke , Wiltshire, four days after his 76th birthday. An exhibition of his works, curated by David Alan Mellor , opened on May 16, 1986, at the Barbican Centre in London, and was scheduled to travel to Barcelona and New York by 1988. The New York exhibition
2256-404: Was influenced by Beaton when they met while working for British Vogue in the early 1960s. Bailey's use of square format (6x6) images is similar to Beaton's own working patterns. In 1968, the National Portrait Gallery in London mounted its inaugural photographic exhibition Beaton Portraits 1928-68 . Furthermore, it was the first time a retrospective for living photographer's work was shown at
2304-690: Was still alive at the time of the original Beaton interview and broadcast. Beaton said that the one record that he would retain on the desert island should the others get washed away would be Beethoven's Symphony No 1 , and his chosen book was a compendium of photographs he had taken down the years of "...people known and unknown; people known but now forgotten". Beaton had relationships with various men and women , including former Olympic fencer and teacher Kinmont Hoitsma (his last lover), actresses Greta Garbo and Coral Browne , dancer Adele Astaire , Greek socialite Madame Jean Ralli (Julie Marie 'Lilia' Pringo), and British socialite Doris Castlerosse . He
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