Kensington Palace: Enchanted Beyond Belief

Having read about the transformation of the public rooms of Kensington Palace by a group of designers and having seen photos that looked nothing like a palace but quite a lot like a theatrical set design, I decided to have a look for myself during a recent trip to London.

Kensington Palace is undergoing a major renovation which goes on until 2012; it should be finished and ready to be reopened to the public  in time for the London Olympics and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. In the meantime, many delicate and valuable items have had to be removed, leaving the public rooms pretty well empty. Rather than closing the palace during the renovation, the empty rooms have been used as the setting for an artistic experiment – The Enchanted Palace.

The theatre company Wildworks and several fashion designers – Vivienne Westwood, William Tempest, Stephen Jones, Boudicca, and Aminaka Wilmont – have transformed the state apartments in an imaginative interpretation of the stories of past residents of the palace, particularly the seven princesses Mary Stuart (later Mary II), her sister Anne, Caroline (consort of George II), Charlotte (daughter of George IV), Victoria, Margaret, and Diana. No longer are the state rooms full of antique furniture giving an idea of the outward trappings and environment in which these princesses lived; instead, modern art and design are used to explore their emotions and feelings. There are  walls covered with childish scribbles, there are footprints disappearing round a corner, there are roses cascading out of fireplaces, there are hats and dresses floating in mid-air. The overall effect is somewhere between Alice in Wonderland, Hogwarts Castle, and Sleeping Beauty. It’s imaginative, it’s beautiful, it’s not remotely royal.

Queen Mary’s Privy Chamber is now the Room of Royal Sorrows, with a mannequin dressed in blue floating above a four-poster bed and with tables full of antique ”tear catcher” bottles. The guidebook asks “Why is this princess weeping?” The emphasis is on Princess Mary’s anguish at having to leave her home and country to marry a much older man and her ongoing sorrow at her inability to have children. The King’s Privy Chamber has been enchanted into the Room of Dancing Princesses, featuring dresses worn by Princess Margaret and Diana Princess of Wales in a setting of stylised trees. The dresses are enclosed in display cabinets, and Princess Margaret’s dress is topped by the Poltimore tiara, adding to the feeling of princesses trapped by narrow constraints and unable to reach the outside world. The Annigoni portrait of Princess Margaret which caused such a controversy during the sale of her possessions a few years ago hangs on the wall behind the display, almost invisible in the low light.

Since this is after all a royal palace, there’s a throne, sitting in a room called The Seat of Power (or, in the real world, the Presence Chamber). This throne is made of fabric, and visitors are encouraged to sit on it and “feel your power.” In another room there’s a display of toy soldiers, harking back to when William III (husband of the childless Mary from the Room of Royal Sorrows) played with his young nephew William Duke of Gloucester, son of Queen Anne. One of the most spectacular displays is a dress by Vivienne Westwood – a ”dress for a rebellious princess” - on the King’s Grand Staircase (enchanted into the Room of Flight). Princess Charlotte of Wales, the rebellious princess in question, was the only child of George IV and hence heiress presumptive to the throne. She insisted on marrying for love, rejecting suitors who were thought more suitable for her and marrying Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. Soon after, she died in childbirth along with her newborn son, precipitating a succession crisis that led to Leopold’s sister marrying George’s younger brother Edward Duke of Kent and producing another Kensington Palace princess, Victoria. Victoria’s bedroom and nursery, renamed the Room of Lost Childhood and the Room of a Sleeping Princess, contain an oversize bed, a display of toys, and a beautiful floating dress made of a thousand origami birds, all intended to evoke the feelings of a young girl whose outward life was constrained by becoming Queen but who dreams of freedom. The famous painting of Queen Victoria’s first Privy Council, as well as portraits of her parents, are almost invisible in the background – in the Enchanted Palace her royal duty and ancestry take second place to her feelings and her dreams.

The Enchanted Palace is a real experience, although not a particularly royal one. I went there preparing to be appalled and ended up intrigued by the creativity and glad I’d taken the time to visit. In particular, the picture of those two contemporary princesses in their glass cages in the forest was a very powerful one. I’m not sure, though, how much of the royal and historical background was accessible to people who aren’t already familiar with it. It’s hard to say whether it’s been altogether successful, judging from the bemused expressions on people’s faces as they looked at the floating hats and dresses and the paper trees and flowers, to say nothing of the guide stationed at the front door warning visitors that they were about to see something a bit, erm, different…

Having seen Kensington Palace before the renovation and thought it was looking a bit run-down, and having seen it during its enchantment, I’m looking forward to seeing the renovated version. It seems from the guidebooks that it’ll be more interactive than before and will continue the emphasis on the personalities and their stories that was evident at the Enchanted Palace. I just hope that the organisation responsible for the palace, Historic Royal Palaces, remembers the first two words of its title. Kensington In Wonderland is fine for a couple of years, but there’s something to be said for reality too.

More details about the Enchanted Palace and a series of photos of the displays are available here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8584628.stm
http://www.wildworks.biz/the-enchanted-palace.html
http://www.hrp.org.uk/KensingtonPalace/stories/palacehighlights/EnchantedPalace.aspx

By Yvonne | Published in: Britain | Tags: exhibitions, Kensington Palace, Royal residences