Лондонның Альбертополис аймағы

Area in South Kensington, London

Albertopolis is the nickname given to the area centred on Exhibition Road in London, named after Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria. It contains many educational and cultural sites. It lies in the former village of Brompton in Middlesex, renamed as South Kensington, split between the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster (the border running along Imperial College Road), and the area bordered by Cromwell Road to the south and Kensington Road to the north.

Following the advice of Prince Albert the area was purchased by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 with the profits made from the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was held in a site in Hyde Park nearby to the north east. This is commemorated in the name of the principal north–south street laid out on their estate, Exhibition Road. Prince Albert was a driving force behind the Great Exhibition and President of the Royal Commission, and the name "Albertopolis" seems to have been coined in the 1850s designed by T. E. Collcutt.

There is a central axis between the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens to the north and the central portal of the south façade of the Natural History Museum. The Royal Albert Hall, Royal College of Music, the former tower of the otherwise demolished Imperial Institute (now the Queen's Tower of Imperial College London) and the 1950s rear extension to the Science Museum are all aligned on this axis, which cannot be seen on the ground. This regular geometric alignment of Albertopolis can be observed readily only from the balconies of the Queen's Tower (very rarely open to visitors), although the northern part can be glimpsed from the top floor of the Science Museum. The closest tube station is South Kensington, linked to the museums by the South Kensington Subway. On 4 May 1885, the District Railway opened South Kensington Subway, a pedestrian subway (a tiled tunnel), running from the station beneath the length of Exhibition Road, giving sheltered access to the newly built museums for a toll of 1 penny. The subway was originally intended to go as far as the Royal Albert Hall, but the construction of the Imperial Institute meant the tunnel emerged at the Science Museum where it exits onto Exhibition Road. Although it had cost £42,614 to construct (approximately £ today), it was closed on 10 November 1886 and afterwards was opened only occasionally for special museum events. Originally only opened during exhibitions in South Kensington, it was opened to the public free of charge in 1908. The subway is Grade II listed. There are also three research libraries in the area, the National Art Library, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Dana Centre, part of the Science Museum, and Imperial College's Abdus Salam Library, located on Queen's Lawn.