Eric Gill Sculpture Broadcasting House BBC Portland Place London
Broadcasting House is the headquarters and registered office of the BBC in Portland Place, London, England. Architect G Val Myer designed the building in collaboration with the BBC's civil engineer, M T Tudsbery. The interiors are the work of the Australian-Irish architect Raymond McGrath. He set up and directed a team that included Serge Chermayeff and Wells Coates and designed the vaudeville studio, the associated green and dressing rooms, and the dance and chamber music studios in a flowing Art Deco style. It was later said of his efforts that "the designs for the BBC gave the first real fillip to industrial design in England". Broadcasting House was officially opened on May 14, 1932 and is now grade II* listed. At the front of the building are statues of Prospero and Ariel (from Shakespeare's The Tempest) by Eric Gill. Their choice was fitting since Prospero was a magician, and Ariel, a spirit of the air, in which radio waves travel. There was, reportedly, controversy over some features of the statues when first built and they were said to have been subsequently modified. They were reported to have been sculpted by Gill as God and Man, rather than simply Prospero and Ariel, and that there is a small carved picture of a beautiful girl on the back part of Prospero's statue. Other sources claim that Gill intended them as God the Father and Son, as supported by the fact that the statue of Ariel has stigmata. Additional carvings of Ariel can be found on the building's exterior in many bas-reliefs
Size: 3661px × 5491px
Photo credit: © Neil Setchfield / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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