A note from underground
On the 150th anniversary of the London Underground, a brief tribute to one of its architects.
In 1903 Leslie Green was appointed architect to the Underground Electric Railway Company of London. His job was to design stations for the Bakerloo, Piccadilly, and Northern lines, to make these stations work within the demanding engineering requirements that resulted from building a complex railway network beneath a great city, and to devise a distinctive but consistent style that would make them recognisable. Over the next five years he designed more than 50 stations, creating a visual style, with the now-familiar ox-blood coloured tiles, that became synonymous with the Underground. My photograph shows the sun catching some of the gold lettering on the tiles of Gloucester Road station. Green's design style, with Arts and Crafts arches, semi-circular windows, and the ubiquitous tiles, was a success – in developing it, Green could be called one of the fathers of the idea of the corporate identity, and its importance is acknowledged by the fact that many of his stations are now listed. Sadly, Green did not go on to yet more successful architectural projects. He died in 1908, still in his thirties.
9 comments:
Very yummy picture Philip. Good old Leslie Green. See one of his abandoned stations in Dover Street, just off Piccadilly and once serving the Piccadilly Line between Green Park and Hyde Park Corner.
Peter: Thank you. I like Dover Street. There's a bit of another abandoned one just off the Brompton Road too.
Cor! lovely! It's the beautiful mirage I see if I stagger out the Bombay Brasserie after a particularly heavy Sunday lunchtime buffet.
Jon: I bet that's a good buffet.
Hi. If you go on the Harry Potter Studio tour (Garston, near Watford), the set makers have made some pretty impressive versions of the Tube tiles.
Did the outside of the Debenham House (biggest public lavatory in London) inspire Green?
Herts
Anon: There's a fair version on EastEnders (East Walford Station) too.
I don't know if Debenham House was an inspiration. These features (tiles, arches, semicircular windows) were in the air at around this time - you see them on various Art Nouveauish buildings. Green made them his own.
Thanks for this bit of background, Phil. I love the variety of London tube stations. Two of our nearest, Elephant and Castle (Bakerloo branch) and Lambeth North are, I now realise, Leslie Greens. I like some of the modern ones too, like Southwark. It's not only the architecture that varies. There are some, like Kilburn Park, where classical music is always playing. The recorded voice at Kennington has the vowels and diction of a 1950s BBC radio announcer, and her grammar is similarly precise: 'Lift number two shall be the next lift.'
Joe: Thanks for your comments. The Underground is indeed a repository of interesting architecture. Quite a few of the Jubilee Line extension stations are beautiful (several were designed by people who in the business are often known as Starchiects). One of these Jubilee stations, Canada Water, is an obvious homage to the 1930s Piccadilly Line and Northern Line stations designed by Charles Holden, many of which are also gems.
I've come across classical music at several stations - Vauxhall sticks in the mind. It began as a way of reducing crime (or at least of making people feel less threatened by potential criminals) on the grounds that (a) such music makes passengers feel relaxed and (b) yobs don;t like Mahler, so move on.
Now I want to go to Kennington, to hear the announcements.
"Starchitects" that should've been.
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