Alexandra Palace: diferenças entre revisões
Conteúdo apagado Conteúdo adicionado
Linha 14:
==História==
[[File:Alex palace2.jpg|thumb|left|200px|left|Estrutura do tecto do '''Alexandra Palace'''.]]
A ''Great Northern Palace Company'' tinha sido estabelecida em [[1860]], mas estava incapacitada de conseguir o financiamento para o projecto. No entanto, a ideia sobreviveu e, no dia [[23 de Julho]] de [[1863]], o ''Alexandra Park'' abriu ao público. Recebeu o nome em homenagem a [[Alexandra da Dinamarca]], que tinha casado com o [[Eduardo VII do Reino Unido|Príncipe Eduardo]], o [[Príncipe de Gales]], quantro meses antes. A construção do palácio começou em [[Setembro]] de [[1865]], mas segundo um desenho diferente da estrutura de vidro proposta inicialmente pelo [[arquitecto]] [[Owen Jones]].
<!--The palace covers some {{convert|7.5|acre|m2}}. In 1871 work started on a railway line to connect the site to Highgate Station. Work on both the railway and the palace was completed in 1873 and, on 24 May of that year Alexandra Palace and Park was opened. [[Sims Reeves]] sang on the opening day before an audience of 102,000.<ref>C. E. Pearce, ''Sims Reeves: Fifty Years of Music in England'' (Stanley Paul, London 1924), 307.</ref> However, only sixteen days later a fire destroyed the palace, killing three members of staff. Only the outer walls survived. In this fire a loan Exhibition of a Collection of English Pottery and Porcelain, comprising some 4,700 items of historic and intrinsic value, was destroyed.<ref>Arthur Hayden, ''Spode and His Successors'' (Cassell, London 1925), pp. 12, 90.</ref>
With typical Victorian vigour, the palace was quickly rebuilt and it reopened on 1 May 1875. The new palace contained a [[concert]] hall, [[art gallery|art galleries]], a museum, a lecture hall, a [[library]], a banqueting room and a [[theatre]]. An open-air swimming pool was constructed at the base of the hill in the surrounding park; the pool is now long closed and little trace remains except some reeds. The grounds included a racecourse with grandstand (Alexandra Park, which closed in 1970), a Japanese village, a switchback ride, a boating lake and a nine-hole golf course. Alexandra Park Cricket and Football Club have also played within the grounds (in the middle of the old racecourse) since 1888. The [[Henry Willis|Willis]] [[organ (music)|organ]] installed in 1875 (vandalised in 1918, restored and reopened in 1929) is still working, but its restoration is ongoing. In its 1929 restored form, Father Willis's masterpiece was declared to be the finest concert-organ in Europe by [[Marcel Dupré]].<ref>[[Felix Aprahamian]], ''The Alexandra Palace Organ'', Sleevenote to [[HMV]] HQM 1199 (Hayes 1970).</ref>
In 1900 the owners of the Palace and Park were threatening to sell them for redevelopment, but a consortium of local authorities led by [[Municipal Borough of Hornsey|Hornsey Urban District Council]] managed to raise enough money to purchase them in the nick of time. By the Alexandra Park and Palace (Public Purposes) Act 1900, a charitable trust was set up; representatives of the purchasing local authorities became the trustees with the duty to keep both palace and park ''"available for the free use and recreation of the public forever"''. It is this duty that the present trustee, [[Haringey]] Council, is currently trying to overturn, protesters fear,<ref>[http://www.saveallypally.com saveallypally.com]</ref> by selling the whole palace to a commercial developer.<ref>[http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/content/camden/broadway/news/story.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=Newsbroadway&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsbroadway&itemid=WeED13%20Apr%202007%2016%3A46%3A44%3A220 Ham & High]</ref>
The palace passed into the hands of the [[Greater London Council]] in 1967, with the proviso that it should be used entirely for charitable purposes, and their trusteeship was transferred to [[London Borough of Haringey|Haringey Council]] in 1980.
The building has a wealth of history; for example, during the First World War the park was closed and the palace and grounds were used as an internment camp for German civilians.
In 1935 the trustees leased part of the palace to the [[BBC]] for use as the production and transmission centre for their new [[BBC One|BBC Television Service]]. The antenna was designed by [[Charles Samuel Franklin]] of the [[Marconi Company|Marconi]] company. The world's first public broadcasts of high-definition [[television]] were made from this site in 1936. Two competing systems, Marconi-EMI's 405-line system and [[John Logie Baird|Baird]]'s 240-line system, were installed, each with its own broadcast studio, and were transmitted on alternate weeks until the 405-line system was chosen in 1937. The palace continued as the BBC's main TV transmitting centre for [[London]] until 1956, interrupted only by [[World War II]], when the transmitter found an alternative use [[Battle of the Beams|jamming German bombers' navigation systems]] (it is said that only 25% of London raids were effective because of these transmissions).{{Fact|date=March 2007}} In 1944 a German [[V-1 flying bomb|doodlebug]] exploded just outside the organ end of the Great Hall and blew in the rose window, leaving the organ exposed to the elements.<ref>Aprahamian 1970, loc. cit.</ref> Between 1947 and 1948 the [[Ministry of Works (United Kingdom)|Ministry of Works]] employed a team which included architect E.T. Spashett to facilitate repairs to the building, including replacing the rose window.<ref>Information from the archives of E.T. Spashett (to be donated to RIBA archives in 2009 after cataloguing)</ref>
In the early 1960s an outside broadcast was made from the very top of the tower, in which the first passage of a satellite across the London sky was watched and described. After that it continued to be used for news broadcasts until 1969, and for the [[Open University]] until the early 1980s. The antenna mast still stands, and is still used for local analogue television transmission, local commercial radio and [[Digital Audio Broadcasting|DAB]] broadcasts. The main London television transmitter is at [[Crystal Palace transmitting station|Crystal Palace]] in South London.
Early in 1980 Haringey Council took over the trusteeship of Alexandra Palace from the GLC and decided to refurbish the building. But just six months later, on 10 July, a couple of days after the [[Great British Beer Festival]] and during [[Capital Radio]]'s Jazz Festival, a second disastrous fire started under the organ and quickly spread. It destroyed half the building. Again the outer walls survived and the eastern parts, including the theatre and the BBC TV studios and aerial mast, were saved. In this fire parts of the famous organ were destroyed, though fortunately it had been dismantled for repairs so some parts (including nearly all the pipework) were away from the building in store. Some of the damage to the palace was repaired immediately but Haringey Council overspent on the restoration, creating a £30 million deficit. It was then reopened to the public in 1988 under a new management team headed by Louis Bizat. Later the Council was severely criticised for this overspend in a report by Project Management International.<ref>Project Management International plc, ''Alexandra Palace: Report for the London Borough of Haringey'' (1990)</ref> This was followed by the decision of the [[Attorney General]] in 1991 that the overspending by the Council as trustee was unlawful and so could not be charged to the charity. The Council for some years did not accept this politically embarrassing finding, and instead maintained that the charity "owed" the Council £30m, charged compound interest on what it termed a "debt" (which eventually rose to a claim of some £60m), and to recoup it tried to offer the whole palace for sale - a policy their successors are still trying to carry out despite being stalled in the High Court in 2007. As of June 2008, it is still unclear whether the Council in either of its guises has agreed to write off its overspend.-->{{-}}
[[File:Alexandra Palace and station.jpg|thumb|250px|A antiga estação de caminho de ferro de Alexandra Palace, dominada pelo próprio palácio. Actualmente é um centro comunitário.]]
<!--An [[ice rink]] was installed in 1990. Primarily intended for public [[ice skating|skating]], it has also housed [[ice hockey]] teams including [[Haringey Racers]], [[Haringey Greyhounds]] and briefly [[London Racers]].<ref>Martin C. Harris, ''Homes of British Ice Hockey''</ref> During the 1960s the palace housed a public roller-skating rink.
The theatre was greatly altered in the early 1920s, with the General Manager, [[W. J. MacQueen-Pope]], spending the war reparation money on refurbishing the auditorium. He abandoned the understage machinery that produced the effects necessary in Victorian [[melodrama]]; some of the machinery is preserved, and there is a project to restore some of it to working order. After these changes, the theatre was leased by Archie Pitt, then husband of [[Gracie Fields]], who appeared in the theatre. Fields also drew an audience of five thousand people to the Hall for a charity event. However after the [[BBC]] leased the eastern part of the palace the theatre was only used for props storage space.
In June 2004 the first performances for about seventy years took place in the theatre, first in its foyer then on 2 July in the theatre itself. Although conditions were far from ideal, the audience was able to see the potential of this very large space – originally seating 3000, it cannot currently be licensed for more than a couple of hundred. It is intended that the theatre will one day reopen, but much costly restoration will be required first. It will never again reach a [[seating capacity]] of 3000 (not least because one balcony was removed in the early part of the 20th century as a fire precaution, when films started to be shown there), but it does seem likely that a capacity of more than 1000 may one day be achieved. A major season of the theatre company [[Complicite]] was planned for 2005 but the project, which would have included some repair and access work, was cancelled due to higher-than-anticipated costs.<ref>
{{cite news | last = Gillespie| first = Ruth| title = Complicite scraps plans for Alexandra Palace rebirth| work = The Stage News| publisher = [[The Stage]]| date = 2005-02-08| url = http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/6411/complicite-scraps-plans-for-alexandra-palace| accessdate = 2008-06-25 | quote = The company had announced plans for a £500,000 refurbishment of the 19th century building last year, more than 65 years after the venue went dark, and planned to occupy the space for 12-weeks in the spring. However, Complicite has been forced to abandon its proposals after the cost of essential safety work on the 2,500-seat auditorium shot up from £160,000 to £310,000.}}</ref>
Plans by the current trustees, Haringey Council, to replace all the charitable uses by commercial ones by a commercial lease of the entire building, including a casino, have encountered considerable public and legal opposition,[http://www.saveallypally.com/] and on 5 October 2007, in the High Court, Mr Justice Sullivan granted an application by Jacob O'Callaghan, a London resident, to quash the Charity Commission's Order authorising a 125-year lease of the entire building to Firoka Ltd.<ref>{{cite news | title = Court rejects £55m Palace plans | work = [[BBC News]]| publisher = [[bbc.co.uk]]| date = 2007-10-05 | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7030648.stm | accessdate = 2008-06-25| quote = Firoz Kassam, the former chairman of Oxford United Football Club, wants to refurbish the building's exhibition halls, add a 150-bedroom hotel, casino, bars and restaurants, and provide public leisure facilities on the site. But on Friday the judge quashed a Charity Commission order which permitted palace trustees to enter into a 125-year lease with Mr Kassam's development company, Firoka Group. Mr Justice Sullivan said lease details were not given in time for public consultation, so the whole consultation process must be reopened.}}</ref>-->
==Acesso==
| |||