Proposal for the Festival of Britain site, the South Bank

Much to the delight of Britain's colour-starved public, the Festival of 1951 was a technicolour celebration after the long grey years of the Second World War. This bright watercolour design for the futuristic exhibition site on London's South Bank was executed by one of Sir Hugh Casson's team of architects and designers on the project, whose members included the young Sir Terence Conran and Mary Quant. The intention of the Festival of Britain was to invoke the future and signal to the world that Britain no longer wished to languish in the past.