Going somewhere
I was once at a literary festival event where a panel that included Joan Bakewell and Jonathan Meades were discussing their favourite buildings. Joan Bakewell, eager to put in a word for Elizabeth Scott, the pioneering woman architect, was making the case for Stratford’s Royal Shakespeare Theatre (this was before its recent remodelling), her most celebrated design. Meades wasn’t convinced, and when Bakewell insisted, ‘Isn’t it like a glorious ocean liner?’ he delivered the coup de grace: ‘Well, maybe. But it isn’t going anywhere.’
‘Ocean liner architecture’ – long lines, strip windows, nautical-looking railings, curves relieving the rhythm of straight lines and right angles – was popular for all kinds of buildings in the 1930s. There are apartment blocks, hotels, and lidos in the style. Here’s a bus shelter (was it originally a tram shelter?) in Leicester that’s in a similar mode. The overall shape, the row of windows, and the overhanging roof give the shelter a strong horizontal emphasis and the lack of pillars at the corners is just the kind of thing modernist architects liked to do to show off. Look, no visible support! The natty angled glass panes at the corners draw attention to it.
Most striking of all, though, are the curvaceous ends of the overhanging roof. As well as providing some extra shelter, they give this little building an overall form not dissimilar to the round-ended city trams of decades gone by. I remember seeing shelters like this when passing through Leicester as a small boy with my parents on trips to visit family in Lincolnshire. Even then they seemed rather special, modern, new (in spite of the fact that they were already maybe 30 years old), and rather like the kind of thing I could build with LEGO. Although I would not have thought to put it like that in those days, they seemed, indeed, to be going somewhere.
8 comments:
I think Deco buildings were often aerodynamically-shaped on purpose. This was to show the designer and owner were rational, modernist, scientific and speedy.
No wonder they were so popular in the 1930s.. And still now.
Hels: Yes, absolutely. This type of architecture was especially closely associated with buildings that had an aura of modernity (cinemas, airports, garages) or with firms that wanted their premises to look up to date (factories belonging to companies such as Hoover or Firestone).
I know these shelters very well of course. Every now and then I mentally list where the survivors are. They are from a era when civic pride meant more than putting a giant TV screen showing daytime television up on a pole in the street (are you listening LEICESTER?). The Leicester Corporation trams and buses once looked purposeful, authoritative (are you listening ARRIVA?)and were simply a fabulous part of the cityscape. These shelters once sported (along with actual glass in the gazing bars) the Corporation coat-of-arms on that central escutcheon. 'Semper Eadem' it said on it. 'Always the Same', which I don't think applied to Leicester's street furniture, but does now to the corporation's consistency in crass decision making. Phew.
I thought there must have been a coat of arms in the middle there, at the top. I didn't realise, though, that I'd touched such a raw nerve with this post – it is, indeed, a shame that the old standards have been allowed to slip so much.
I can't help comparing this with the "sets" in Rogers & Astaire films, including (in The Gay Divorcee) a representation of Brighton as if entirely in 1930's horizontal style! What also strikes me is the way this "modern, streamlined" stuff is so QUAINT these days, like antique steam engines on coats of arms of "progressive" railway towns. Perhaps making a clean break with the past often just makes you a slave of fashion, and the end result is a lack of initiative and originality. Though I can't help having a bit of a buzz from 1930's buildings - if they successfully avoid evoking National Socialism!
A quick search on the internet reveals that there are 5 art deco tram shelters in Leicester. They were donated by a local businessman Robert Rowley who was in the hosiery business, being the third largest hosiery company in Leicester. As many of the staff travelled to work by tram the shelters were for their benefit.
Interestingly one of the shelters built on Western Boulevard was built in anticipation of a tram line being built. This did not happen so it served as a bus shelter. I came across a reference that an application has been made to turn it into a coffee shop.
On a related note the Stoneygate Tram Depot built in 1904 has been acquired on a lease by the Leicester Transport Heritage Trust for use as a museum to display their collection of material and transport vehicles. Repair work is currently being undertaken.
Stephen: Thank you very much. Hosiery of course was a major employer in Leicester in those days.
More information here at The Leicester Chronicle: http://theleicesterchronicle.co.uk/leicester-art-deco-tram-shelters
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