UK chooses glass bridge design for Queen memorial
A memorial to honour Queen Elizabeth in London's St James's Park will feature a statue of Britain's longest-reigning monarch on horseback, another of her arm-in-arm with her husband Prince Philip and a glass bridge.
Elizabeth II died at her Scottish castle on September 8, 2022, after more than seven decades on the throne. She was 96. Her death provoked days of mourning and tributes from across the world.
St James's Park, which is located opposite Buckingham Palace, was chosen as the best site to pay tribute to her reign, and under the plan the park will be reshaped, with two new areas of gardens and two new gates.
The committee chose the plans drawn up by Foster + Partners, a firm headed by Norman Foster, one of Britain's most influential architects, who is known for the Gherkin building in London's financial district and the Reichstag dome in Berlin.
Foster, 90, knew Elizabeth personally after she appointed him to the Order of Merit for services to architecture in 1997, and he said his idea was to use the site to narrate her legacy and the extraordinary story of her life.
The new glass bridge is inspired by the tiara she wore at her wedding while the two gates and two gardens reflect the way the Queen balanced tradition and modernity, public duty and private faith, and Britain and the Commonwealth, Foster said.
"It's really creating something which is timeless, and reaches across all ages and interests and conveys the values of Her Majesty, which were a mixture of the formal and...delightful informality," he told BBC Radio.
The design will be finalised by April 2026 and the memorial could be completed one to two years after that, Foster said.
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The Advertiser
2 hours ago
- The Advertiser
UK chooses glass bridge design for Queen memorial
A memorial to honour Queen Elizabeth in London's St James's Park will feature a statue of Britain's longest-reigning monarch on horseback, another of her arm-in-arm with her husband Prince Philip and a glass bridge. Elizabeth II died at her Scottish castle on September 8, 2022, after more than seven decades on the throne. She was 96. Her death provoked days of mourning and tributes from across the world. St James's Park, which is located opposite Buckingham Palace, was chosen as the best site to pay tribute to her reign, and under the plan the park will be reshaped, with two new areas of gardens and two new gates. The committee chose the plans drawn up by Foster + Partners, a firm headed by Norman Foster, one of Britain's most influential architects, who is known for the Gherkin building in London's financial district and the Reichstag dome in Berlin. Foster, 90, knew Elizabeth personally after she appointed him to the Order of Merit for services to architecture in 1997, and he said his idea was to use the site to narrate her legacy and the extraordinary story of her life. The new glass bridge is inspired by the tiara she wore at her wedding while the two gates and two gardens reflect the way the Queen balanced tradition and modernity, public duty and private faith, and Britain and the Commonwealth, Foster said. "It's really creating something which is timeless, and reaches across all ages and interests and conveys the values of Her Majesty, which were a mixture of the formal informality," he told BBC Radio. The design will be finalised by April 2026 and the memorial could be completed one to two years after that, Foster said. A memorial to honour Queen Elizabeth in London's St James's Park will feature a statue of Britain's longest-reigning monarch on horseback, another of her arm-in-arm with her husband Prince Philip and a glass bridge. Elizabeth II died at her Scottish castle on September 8, 2022, after more than seven decades on the throne. She was 96. Her death provoked days of mourning and tributes from across the world. St James's Park, which is located opposite Buckingham Palace, was chosen as the best site to pay tribute to her reign, and under the plan the park will be reshaped, with two new areas of gardens and two new gates. The committee chose the plans drawn up by Foster + Partners, a firm headed by Norman Foster, one of Britain's most influential architects, who is known for the Gherkin building in London's financial district and the Reichstag dome in Berlin. Foster, 90, knew Elizabeth personally after she appointed him to the Order of Merit for services to architecture in 1997, and he said his idea was to use the site to narrate her legacy and the extraordinary story of her life. The new glass bridge is inspired by the tiara she wore at her wedding while the two gates and two gardens reflect the way the Queen balanced tradition and modernity, public duty and private faith, and Britain and the Commonwealth, Foster said. "It's really creating something which is timeless, and reaches across all ages and interests and conveys the values of Her Majesty, which were a mixture of the formal informality," he told BBC Radio. The design will be finalised by April 2026 and the memorial could be completed one to two years after that, Foster said. A memorial to honour Queen Elizabeth in London's St James's Park will feature a statue of Britain's longest-reigning monarch on horseback, another of her arm-in-arm with her husband Prince Philip and a glass bridge. Elizabeth II died at her Scottish castle on September 8, 2022, after more than seven decades on the throne. She was 96. Her death provoked days of mourning and tributes from across the world. St James's Park, which is located opposite Buckingham Palace, was chosen as the best site to pay tribute to her reign, and under the plan the park will be reshaped, with two new areas of gardens and two new gates. The committee chose the plans drawn up by Foster + Partners, a firm headed by Norman Foster, one of Britain's most influential architects, who is known for the Gherkin building in London's financial district and the Reichstag dome in Berlin. Foster, 90, knew Elizabeth personally after she appointed him to the Order of Merit for services to architecture in 1997, and he said his idea was to use the site to narrate her legacy and the extraordinary story of her life. The new glass bridge is inspired by the tiara she wore at her wedding while the two gates and two gardens reflect the way the Queen balanced tradition and modernity, public duty and private faith, and Britain and the Commonwealth, Foster said. "It's really creating something which is timeless, and reaches across all ages and interests and conveys the values of Her Majesty, which were a mixture of the formal informality," he told BBC Radio. The design will be finalised by April 2026 and the memorial could be completed one to two years after that, Foster said. A memorial to honour Queen Elizabeth in London's St James's Park will feature a statue of Britain's longest-reigning monarch on horseback, another of her arm-in-arm with her husband Prince Philip and a glass bridge. Elizabeth II died at her Scottish castle on September 8, 2022, after more than seven decades on the throne. She was 96. Her death provoked days of mourning and tributes from across the world. St James's Park, which is located opposite Buckingham Palace, was chosen as the best site to pay tribute to her reign, and under the plan the park will be reshaped, with two new areas of gardens and two new gates. The committee chose the plans drawn up by Foster + Partners, a firm headed by Norman Foster, one of Britain's most influential architects, who is known for the Gherkin building in London's financial district and the Reichstag dome in Berlin. Foster, 90, knew Elizabeth personally after she appointed him to the Order of Merit for services to architecture in 1997, and he said his idea was to use the site to narrate her legacy and the extraordinary story of her life. The new glass bridge is inspired by the tiara she wore at her wedding while the two gates and two gardens reflect the way the Queen balanced tradition and modernity, public duty and private faith, and Britain and the Commonwealth, Foster said. "It's really creating something which is timeless, and reaches across all ages and interests and conveys the values of Her Majesty, which were a mixture of the formal informality," he told BBC Radio. The design will be finalised by April 2026 and the memorial could be completed one to two years after that, Foster said.
Perth Now
4 hours ago
- Perth Now
UK chooses glass bridge design for Queen memorial
A memorial to honour Queen Elizabeth in London's St James's Park will feature a statue of Britain's longest-reigning monarch on horseback, another of her arm-in-arm with her husband Prince Philip and a glass bridge. Elizabeth II died at her Scottish castle on September 8, 2022, after more than seven decades on the throne. She was 96. Her death provoked days of mourning and tributes from across the world. St James's Park, which is located opposite Buckingham Palace, was chosen as the best site to pay tribute to her reign, and under the plan the park will be reshaped, with two new areas of gardens and two new gates. The committee chose the plans drawn up by Foster + Partners, a firm headed by Norman Foster, one of Britain's most influential architects, who is known for the Gherkin building in London's financial district and the Reichstag dome in Berlin. Foster, 90, knew Elizabeth personally after she appointed him to the Order of Merit for services to architecture in 1997, and he said his idea was to use the site to narrate her legacy and the extraordinary story of her life. The new glass bridge is inspired by the tiara she wore at her wedding while the two gates and two gardens reflect the way the Queen balanced tradition and modernity, public duty and private faith, and Britain and the Commonwealth, Foster said. "It's really creating something which is timeless, and reaches across all ages and interests and conveys the values of Her Majesty, which were a mixture of the formal informality," he told BBC Radio. The design will be finalised by April 2026 and the memorial could be completed one to two years after that, Foster said.
The Advertiser
15-05-2025
- The Advertiser
I tried 2600-year-old bread at an 'ancient' village in Scotland
Out of context, the small box in front of me would look to contain nothing more than a scrap of extremely well-worn rag. In fact, it's the oldest ever example of tweed found in Scotland, dating back to as early as 420BCE. "Archaeology is a load of rubbish," quips Izzie Hanby, our guide on a Scottish Crannog Centre tour. "Everything we have in here is something someone has thrown away or left behind, and we come along, pick it up, and analyse it." She's right. Everything on display at the independently run museum in the Perthshire village of Kenmore - from a butter dish with remnants in its grooves to an ornamental clothes peg - was once discarded, left to lie in situ until someone came along and found it worthy of investigating. "If we didn't have any of this, we wouldn't have outside at all; the museum is the most important part of what we do," says Hanby. The "outside" she's referring to is the replica Iron Age village, a series of thatch-roofed roundhouses set up just as life would have been all those centuries ago. We follow the smoke to the first of the semi-open huts, where we're met by one of Hanby's colleagues, who's flattening and cooking blini-sized pieces of bread over the fire. They're made from emmer, an ancient grain, which would have been ground down to a fine flour with two stones and brute force. Another group member tries his hand with the crude mortar and pestle while we're given the rundown on the intricacies - or lack thereof - of an Iron Age kitchen. Piping-hot servings of flatbread topped with homemade cheese are passed around. They're so good I'm not even ashamed to go back for seconds. I pop the flatbread into my mouth as we find a seat in the blacksmith's roundhouse. Yet another one of Hanby's colleagues is manning this hut, and he's furiously pumping the forge blower, kicking up embers and covering himself in a fine layer of soot. He's getting the coal to temperature to show us how nails would have been forged 2600 years ago. It's hard work hammering and bending the hot iron, but not as much work as the woodworker puts in next door, manually spinning the lathe to shape a wooden goblet. The final stop on the tour is the textiles roundhouse, where Hanby reveals the details of her latest research project. She's exploring how to get different dye effects on textiles in the most unusual way: using woad - a blue dye extracted from the leaves of the Isatis tinctoria plant - and urine. Though it has shock value, using urine to develop the colour of this natural dye on wool is a recognised technique and was used by the famous Harris Tweed right up until the 20th century. I'm happy to learn that the small hanks of hand-dyed wool for sale as we exit are urine-free, so I pick one up as a souvenir. The self-funded centre relies on sales and donations, and I'm more than happy to do my part in helping to preserve this important part of Scottish history. The writer was a guest of Visit Scotland. Out of context, the small box in front of me would look to contain nothing more than a scrap of extremely well-worn rag. In fact, it's the oldest ever example of tweed found in Scotland, dating back to as early as 420BCE. "Archaeology is a load of rubbish," quips Izzie Hanby, our guide on a Scottish Crannog Centre tour. "Everything we have in here is something someone has thrown away or left behind, and we come along, pick it up, and analyse it." She's right. Everything on display at the independently run museum in the Perthshire village of Kenmore - from a butter dish with remnants in its grooves to an ornamental clothes peg - was once discarded, left to lie in situ until someone came along and found it worthy of investigating. "If we didn't have any of this, we wouldn't have outside at all; the museum is the most important part of what we do," says Hanby. The "outside" she's referring to is the replica Iron Age village, a series of thatch-roofed roundhouses set up just as life would have been all those centuries ago. We follow the smoke to the first of the semi-open huts, where we're met by one of Hanby's colleagues, who's flattening and cooking blini-sized pieces of bread over the fire. They're made from emmer, an ancient grain, which would have been ground down to a fine flour with two stones and brute force. Another group member tries his hand with the crude mortar and pestle while we're given the rundown on the intricacies - or lack thereof - of an Iron Age kitchen. Piping-hot servings of flatbread topped with homemade cheese are passed around. They're so good I'm not even ashamed to go back for seconds. I pop the flatbread into my mouth as we find a seat in the blacksmith's roundhouse. Yet another one of Hanby's colleagues is manning this hut, and he's furiously pumping the forge blower, kicking up embers and covering himself in a fine layer of soot. He's getting the coal to temperature to show us how nails would have been forged 2600 years ago. It's hard work hammering and bending the hot iron, but not as much work as the woodworker puts in next door, manually spinning the lathe to shape a wooden goblet. The final stop on the tour is the textiles roundhouse, where Hanby reveals the details of her latest research project. She's exploring how to get different dye effects on textiles in the most unusual way: using woad - a blue dye extracted from the leaves of the Isatis tinctoria plant - and urine. Though it has shock value, using urine to develop the colour of this natural dye on wool is a recognised technique and was used by the famous Harris Tweed right up until the 20th century. I'm happy to learn that the small hanks of hand-dyed wool for sale as we exit are urine-free, so I pick one up as a souvenir. The self-funded centre relies on sales and donations, and I'm more than happy to do my part in helping to preserve this important part of Scottish history. The writer was a guest of Visit Scotland. Out of context, the small box in front of me would look to contain nothing more than a scrap of extremely well-worn rag. In fact, it's the oldest ever example of tweed found in Scotland, dating back to as early as 420BCE. "Archaeology is a load of rubbish," quips Izzie Hanby, our guide on a Scottish Crannog Centre tour. "Everything we have in here is something someone has thrown away or left behind, and we come along, pick it up, and analyse it." She's right. Everything on display at the independently run museum in the Perthshire village of Kenmore - from a butter dish with remnants in its grooves to an ornamental clothes peg - was once discarded, left to lie in situ until someone came along and found it worthy of investigating. "If we didn't have any of this, we wouldn't have outside at all; the museum is the most important part of what we do," says Hanby. The "outside" she's referring to is the replica Iron Age village, a series of thatch-roofed roundhouses set up just as life would have been all those centuries ago. We follow the smoke to the first of the semi-open huts, where we're met by one of Hanby's colleagues, who's flattening and cooking blini-sized pieces of bread over the fire. They're made from emmer, an ancient grain, which would have been ground down to a fine flour with two stones and brute force. Another group member tries his hand with the crude mortar and pestle while we're given the rundown on the intricacies - or lack thereof - of an Iron Age kitchen. Piping-hot servings of flatbread topped with homemade cheese are passed around. They're so good I'm not even ashamed to go back for seconds. I pop the flatbread into my mouth as we find a seat in the blacksmith's roundhouse. Yet another one of Hanby's colleagues is manning this hut, and he's furiously pumping the forge blower, kicking up embers and covering himself in a fine layer of soot. He's getting the coal to temperature to show us how nails would have been forged 2600 years ago. It's hard work hammering and bending the hot iron, but not as much work as the woodworker puts in next door, manually spinning the lathe to shape a wooden goblet. The final stop on the tour is the textiles roundhouse, where Hanby reveals the details of her latest research project. She's exploring how to get different dye effects on textiles in the most unusual way: using woad - a blue dye extracted from the leaves of the Isatis tinctoria plant - and urine. Though it has shock value, using urine to develop the colour of this natural dye on wool is a recognised technique and was used by the famous Harris Tweed right up until the 20th century. I'm happy to learn that the small hanks of hand-dyed wool for sale as we exit are urine-free, so I pick one up as a souvenir. The self-funded centre relies on sales and donations, and I'm more than happy to do my part in helping to preserve this important part of Scottish history. The writer was a guest of Visit Scotland. Out of context, the small box in front of me would look to contain nothing more than a scrap of extremely well-worn rag. In fact, it's the oldest ever example of tweed found in Scotland, dating back to as early as 420BCE. "Archaeology is a load of rubbish," quips Izzie Hanby, our guide on a Scottish Crannog Centre tour. "Everything we have in here is something someone has thrown away or left behind, and we come along, pick it up, and analyse it." She's right. Everything on display at the independently run museum in the Perthshire village of Kenmore - from a butter dish with remnants in its grooves to an ornamental clothes peg - was once discarded, left to lie in situ until someone came along and found it worthy of investigating. "If we didn't have any of this, we wouldn't have outside at all; the museum is the most important part of what we do," says Hanby. The "outside" she's referring to is the replica Iron Age village, a series of thatch-roofed roundhouses set up just as life would have been all those centuries ago. We follow the smoke to the first of the semi-open huts, where we're met by one of Hanby's colleagues, who's flattening and cooking blini-sized pieces of bread over the fire. They're made from emmer, an ancient grain, which would have been ground down to a fine flour with two stones and brute force. Another group member tries his hand with the crude mortar and pestle while we're given the rundown on the intricacies - or lack thereof - of an Iron Age kitchen. Piping-hot servings of flatbread topped with homemade cheese are passed around. They're so good I'm not even ashamed to go back for seconds. I pop the flatbread into my mouth as we find a seat in the blacksmith's roundhouse. Yet another one of Hanby's colleagues is manning this hut, and he's furiously pumping the forge blower, kicking up embers and covering himself in a fine layer of soot. He's getting the coal to temperature to show us how nails would have been forged 2600 years ago. It's hard work hammering and bending the hot iron, but not as much work as the woodworker puts in next door, manually spinning the lathe to shape a wooden goblet. The final stop on the tour is the textiles roundhouse, where Hanby reveals the details of her latest research project. She's exploring how to get different dye effects on textiles in the most unusual way: using woad - a blue dye extracted from the leaves of the Isatis tinctoria plant - and urine. Though it has shock value, using urine to develop the colour of this natural dye on wool is a recognised technique and was used by the famous Harris Tweed right up until the 20th century. I'm happy to learn that the small hanks of hand-dyed wool for sale as we exit are urine-free, so I pick one up as a souvenir. The self-funded centre relies on sales and donations, and I'm more than happy to do my part in helping to preserve this important part of Scottish history. The writer was a guest of Visit Scotland.
