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Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Skylon (Festival of Britain)

Former public artwork in London

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 28, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The Skylon was a futuristic-looking, slender, vertical, cigar-shaped steel tensegrity structure located by the Thames in London, that gave the illusion of floating above the ground, built in 1951 for the Festival of Britain.

Editorial summary

“Skylon (Festival of Britain)” enters the record as former public artwork in London. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Skylon, Festival and Britain can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1951—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Skylon, Festival and Britain.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Skylon (Festival of Britain)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Skylon, Festival and Britain provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 28, 2026. The first chronological checks are 1951.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Skylon (Festival of Britain)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Skylon (Festival of Britain) primary sources, Skylon (Festival of Britain) archive and Skylon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Skylon (Festival of Britain)”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Skylon (Festival of Britain)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.