Crystal Palace’s ‘rusty laptop’ gets booted up for music festival
The long-derelict Crystal Palace Bowl music venue, referred to locally as the rusty laptop, will be the location for a series of concerts – hopefully – taking place this August. Though the stage won’t be repaired in time, the iconic structure with a pond in front of it will provide an impressive backdrop for the music, whilst the lovely grassy sloped dip provides great acoustics in a kind of natural amphitheatre (we went to an outdoor film screening of Dirty Dancing there many years ago).
South Facing Festival will run on successive Saturdays in August and feature Dizzee Rascal, Supergrass, The Streets, Max Richter and the English National Opera.
The site has been a popular music venue for some sixty years and in its heyday featured many acts including Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Elton John, the Pixies, Bruce Springsteen and the Cure.
The current ‘rusty laptop’ was built in 1997 (previously a shell-like structure was used) by Ian Ritchie Architects and nominated for the RIBA Stirling Prize in 1998. The use of earth-coloured, pre-rusted Corten steel, as opposed to, say, Portland stone, more naturally integrates with the surrounding landscape and brings to mind the work of British sculptors such as Anthony Gormley. The sound system, too, was state of the art, being the ‘world's first computer controlled outdoor active acoustic system’, containing 46 speakers.
Despite Bruce Springsteen and Coldplay playing there in the early 2000s, the venue had fallen out of favour, and has remained abandoned for over a decade.
Although the original Crystal Palace has long burnt down, the area is still full of architectural gems including the transmitter tower, Moorish subway, Sphinxes and dinosaurs.
Sign up for South Facing information and tickets here.
crystalpalacebowl.com
Previously on Barnflakes
Cinema in Crystal Palace finally to reopen
In the Crystal Palace subway
Top ten London creatures
Deep excavations
Random Film Review: The Pleasure Garden
London through its charity shops #25: Crystal Palace
The dinosaurs of Crystal Palace
Elsewhere on Barnflakes
Crystal Palace Flickr album