Skylon (Festival of Britain)

The Skylon at the Festival of Britain, 1951
The Skylon illuminated at night
Skylon model at the Museum of London

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.

A popular joke of the period was that, like the British economy of 1951, "It had no visible means of support".[1]

  1. ^ "The Reunion – Festival of Britain". BBC Radio 4.