Captain Francis Fowke and Major-General Henry Y. D. Scott of the Royal Engineers designed the Royal Albert Hall as the practical half of a memorial to Prince Albert, who died in 1861. Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone on May 20, 1867, and the hall opened on March 29, 1871. It cost £200,000.
The hall is an ellipse measuring 272 by 236 feet (83 by 72 m) outside, under a glazed wrought-iron dome 135 feet (41 m) high, designed by Rowland Mason Ordish. The walls are mainly Fareham Red brick, and an 800-foot terracotta frieze, The Triumph of Arts and Sciences, circles the exterior. The infobox style is Italianate.
The hall echoed badly from its first concert, and fiberglass diffusing discs, called mushrooms, finally cured it in 1969. The Proms have been held here every summer since 1941. The Henry Willis organ of 1871 now has 9,997 pipes, and the hall is Grade I listed.
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