Royal Albert Hall

The Royal Albert Hall stands as a colossal memorial to Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a grand space to advance the arts and sciences. When the building officially opened in eighteen seventy-one, its ambitious design featured an immense iron and glass dome that remains the largest unsupported glass dome in the world. Queen Victoria was so overcome with emotion during the inaugural ceremony that she could not speak, leaving her son, the Prince of Wales, to deliver the opening address on her behalf. Her only recorded comment on the completed structure was that it reminded her of the British constitution.