We are very honoured to have been invited to give a talk at the Isokon Gallery, part of the wonderful Isokon Building in Belsize Park, designed by Wells Coates.
On Thursday May 31st from 6.30pm, we will be exploring the differing modernist buildings of the Metro-Land era and area. From the underground stations of Charles Holden to the fantastical factories of Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, we will see how modernist architecture developed in Britain and made the world we know today. The ticket price is £10, which also includes wine or juice. To reserve your place click HERE
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Ian Nairn was a critic, writer and broadcaster who critiqued post war design and planning from the 1950’s until his premature death in 1983. Despite a lack of architectural education, Nairn, who served in the RAF just after World War II, managed to finagle a job with the Architectural Review magazine in 1955. He came to prominence, in public as well as architectural circles, with his withering denunciation of the failures of post war planning, Outrage, in which he coined the term Subtopia. Subtopia defined the messy, suburban sprawl that gathers around cities and towns as they expand and change, as the urban invades the rural. As well as working on Sir Nikolaus Pevsner’s Buildings of England series, where he was let go due to his overly subjective style, he penned the books Nairn's’ London (1966) and Modern Buildings in London (1964), both equally cherished today as they were on publication. It is from these books that we will look at Ian Nairn's opinions on Metro-Land and its buildings. Nairn’s London ranges all over the Greater London region, “A record of what has moved me between Uxbridge and Dagenham” as Nairn says in the introduction. Like Sir John Betjeman in his Metro-Land film of 1973, Nairn’s first stop in Metro-Land is at Wembley and the ruins of the 1924 British Empire Exhibition. Now almost all gone, at the time of writing Nairn’s London, many of the exhibition buildings remained, unlike those of the Festival of Britain only 15 years previous. Nairn praises the “bull-nosed” concrete buildings, then used as warehouses and business premises. He notes a concrete bridge mouldering away “among weeping willows and beer cans”, and calls it “one of the best things we did in the twenties...true English modernism”. Now long gone, presumably it is the bridge pictured below, most probably designed by Owen Williams. In his Wembley wanderings he also mentions The Torch pub, calling it “as good as anywhere in London to feel the real temper of the ‘ordinary England’ in the 1960’s”. The pub is still there, filled with football fans on weekends. Again, like Betjeman, his next stop of interest is Ernest Trobridge’s medieval fantasy houses in Kingsbury. Also like Betjeman, Nairn doesn't mention the architect by name, presumably he was so out of fashion in the mid-1960’s his name had been forgotten. Nairn praises the houses, saying they are “a real expression of the dreams of individuality which sent people flocking here in the 1920’s along with the Underground”. This is very much representative of Nairn’s tone throughout the two books; against planners, out of touch architects and bureaucrats and for the man in the street. Nairn gives short shrift to some of the other Metro-Land towns; Harrow “swamps its village with Victorian buildings as ponderous as company reports”, and in Watford Nairn calls the new High Street “despicable” and the post war office blocks “just about bearable”. Whereas Nairn’s London is interested in a sense of place as well as buildings, Modern Buildings in London is a more straight architectural guidebook, produced for London Transport. In it he praises Charles Holden’s work for London Underground from the early 1930’s as well as criticising the later works. Arnos Grove is described as one of the first modernist buildings in Britain “that did not throw their style in the public’s face”. In the entry for Sudbury Town, Nairn laments that Holden would “decline into frivolities and...weary classicisms..” after his early London Underground work. His later station at Uxbridge, designed with L.H. Bucknell, comes in for criticism, saying that exterior facade “just about ruins the centre of Uxbridge”, before praising the interior, calling it “one of Holden’s most luminous inventions”. Nairn is never one for choosing the obvious to praise, indeed he seems to prefer criticising the more famous buildings of the era. Instead he often praises projects which are now forgotten in obscurity. In both Nairn’s London and Modern Buildings in London, he includes Mansfield Heights (1956), a small scheme of Metropolitan Police housing in East Finchley. The mini estate is still there, now presumably privately owned, with houses and two small blocks of flats, and some small scale landscaped gardens. A similar and nearby scheme noted by Nairn is Green Bank in Woodside Park (1961). Designed by Ronald Salmon & Partners, Nairn calls them “fresh, straightforward terraces” and presciently notes that scheme’s impact rests on its maintenance which “will need watching”. As we know, many modernist schemes of the 1950’s & 60’s looked fine on the drawing board and publicity photos but would later succumb to neglect and decay. Some of the buildings Nairn highlighted are no longer with us. Alexander Gibson’s house at 5 Cannon, Hampstead (1955) featured in a number of architectural books of the era. Nairn praised it for being “Small, simple and beautifully detailed”. Unfortunately the house was demolished in 2010 and replaced by another design by Claudio Silvestrin. In Uxbridge, Nairn noted the Imhof Factory (1957) by Tayler & Green, known for their housing work in Norfolk. Nairn calls it a “sophisticated, arcadian building” and laments that New Town factories were designed with the same quality. Again this building was demolished at the start of the 21st century. Ian Nairn continued to range all over Britain, Europe and the United States producing books and television series, such as Britain's Changing Towns, Nairn’s Paris and Nairn at Large. Unfortunately Nairn would slide into alcoholism in his later years. He had always been a huge beer drinker, ( Nairn’s London even has a Beer section in the back of he book), but as he got older the work thinned out and the drinking increased. Nairn died 14 August 1983 at the age of 52, of cirrhosis of the liver. In recent years his influence and writings have received much more attention, with reissues of some of his books, including Nairn's London and Britain’s Changing Towns, as well as a BBC4 documentary about him. In an age of “Icon” architecture and ever increasing Subtopia between town and city, Nairn’s warnings about the desecration of our public spaces is one to heed. Ian Nairn’s book were a great inspiration in starting this site, and we hope to produce our own “ A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land”, a guide to the art deco and modernist buildings of the region. Follow this link to help make this possible and see the great rewards for pledging Pledge for A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land Hello,
I just wanted to send a quick message to everyone who has pledged to support A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land, and say THANK YOU! Your backing for the project at this early stage has been wonderful and I am really grateful for your help. We have now reached 20% and have over 160 supporters, but there is still a long way to go. If there is anyone you know who might be interested please send them the link for pledging https://unbound.com/books/a-guide-to-modernism-in-metro-land/ Also, if you could let people know about the project on your social media platforms, we would also be very grateful. Lastly, there are lots of different pledge levels available, offering a range of different rewards; from t-shirts and tote bags to photographic prints and portraits to a specially curated Jewels of Metro-Land tour, so if you feel like upgrading your pledge there are lots of options available. To upgrade, just log in to your Unbound account and next to your pledge for The Guide there will be a green Upgrade/Donate button. Thank you once again for your support and we look forward to sending you A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land once we reach the target. Josh Abbott Images from the London Transport Museum Last September we celebrated the opening of the first five stations in the Piccadilly Line extensions to Cockfosters. Starting at Manor House and culminating at the masterpiece of Arnos Grove, these stations broke new ground in public modernist design in Britain. They also showcased the aesthetic qualities Charles Holden and Frank Pick, the CEO of the London Transport Passenger Board, had crafted since working together from the mid 1920’s. The stations were designed to act as adverts for the underground network; communicating modernity, speed and ease of use. In this blog we will look at the final three stations on the extension; Southgate, Oakwood and Cockfosters. Southgate One of Holden's most distinctive stations, Southgate is a low circular structure, often compared to a UFO. The station opened on March 13 1933, along with Oakwood. The roof tapers to a point, and is topped with five circular lights, that slide open and shut, with a ball on top. Inside, as at Arnos Grove, a single concrete pole supports the roof, with a passimeter at the base. Like Turnpike Lane, there is an integrated bus station, with a long curved shopping parade, allowing buses to circulate into the station from the road. Stanley Heaps originally designed a box shaped station on the west side on the site, but Holden with his assistant Israel Schultz, revised the scheme. The exterior also feature the wonderful masts which were designed to combine lighting, seating and timetables. Oakwood Initially called Enfield West, then Enfield West (Oakwood), before being renamed Oakwood in 1946. The station was designed by CH James in a simple Sudbury box design. It is reminiscent of Acton Town, with a larger canopy at the front. A bus station had been intended as part of the design but was dropped to to low passenger numbers. The platform features cantilevered concrete canopies, designed by Stanley Heaps. CH James was an architect more well known for his house designs, especially in Welwyn Garden City. James had been assistant to Edwin Lutyens and to Raymond Unwin and also worked on housing design in Letchworth Garden City and Hampstead Garden Suburb. Holden and James had previously designed a stand for the Empire Marketing board at the British Industries Fair in 1931, and they may have known each other from Welwyn, where Holden had lived for a number of years. Cockfosters The end of the eastern Piccadilly line extension, originally planned as a much grander terminus style building, with towers either side of the road. As it is, Cockfosters is one of Holden's stations where the beauty is underground, much like Gants Hill. The station opened on July 31 1933, and features a long low above ground station building, with an subway entrance opposite. The ticket hall and platform areas are often likened to a church, due to the long nave like shape and clerestory windows. This design was replicated at Uxbridge. The use of plain board marked concrete also points the way to postwar architectural styles such as brutalism. The original plan allowed for extension to incorporate two parades of shops, a staff building, a garage and even potentially a cinema. However the expected passenger traffic did not materialize, and the station remains as opened in 1933. The opening of these three stations completed the northern Piccadilly Line extension. It also represented the high water mark of Charles Holden’s design for London Underground, and probably the most coherent set of tube stations designs until the Jubilee Line extension of the late 1990’s. The integration of design and purpose leave these stations as some of the finest modernist buildings built in Britain, buildings that are still carrying millions of commuters to and from their destinations each year, a fitting testament to the vision of Frank Pick and Charles Holden. All these stations and many of more of Charles Holden feature in our "A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land", get your copy HERE
The documentary programme “Metro-Land”, written and presented by John Betjeman and directed by Edward Mirzoeff, was first aired 45 years ago this week, on 26th February 1973. Forty-nine minutes in length, the programme follows Betjeman as he travels the course of the former Metropolitan Railway, from the hustle and bustle of Baker Street to the abandoned station of Verney Junction, near Aylesbury. In between, Betjeman explores the north western suburbs of London, the area that became known as Metro-Land in the first part of the 20th Century. Betjeman had previously hymned Metro-Land’s praises in his poems such as “Harrow-on-the-Hill and Middlesex”. The then Poet Laureate takes in various buildings; from John Adams Acton’s neo-gothic house in St John's Wood, to Norman Shaw’s Arts & Crafts Grim’s Dyke in Harrow Weald and C.F. Voysey’s The Orchard in Chorleywood. And of course he also visits a few buildings that may be familiar to visitors to this website. The first of these is at Wembley, and the site of the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, now largely demolished. The exhibition was one of the engines that fueled the growth of Metro-Land, drawing 27 million visitors to the outskirts of London. Indeed Betjeman notes that before it Wembley was “an unimportant hamlet where the Met didn’t bother to stop”. The exhibition was built on the site of the 1890 tower known as “Watkins Folly”, an attempt by the railway magnate, Sir Edward Watkin, to construct a British version of the Eiffel Tower. The project ran out of money after the tower had reached just over 150 ft, and was abandoned before being demolished in 1907. The design and construction of the Empire Exhibition was handled by John Simpson, Maxwell Ayrton and Owen Williams. Among the many pavilions and halls were the Palaces of Arts, Industry and Engineering. Betjeman appears in the film in the first of these, as well as on the pitch of Wembley Stadium, also built as part of the Exhibition, and reminisces about attending the event Almost all of the exhibition buildings have now been demolished, with the Palace of Industry being torn down in 2013. You can read about the last surviving remnants HERE. Next was the decidedly un-modernist Highfort Court in Kingsbury. Designed by architect Ernest Trobridge, this personification of the saying “An Englishman’s home is his castle” sits at a crossroads amid a number of other Trobridge designed buildings. Trobridge believed in the healing powers of design and built his homes for those returning from the horrors of World War I. His house designs can be found all over what is now Brent, and are instantly recognisable from their faux-rustic appearances, using timber, brick and tile hanging to create a vision of the (non-existent) idyllic past. For the programme, Betjeman perched upon the battlements of the entrance, providing one of the most memorable images of the film. The most modernist piece of metro-land visited by Betjeman was High and Over house in Amersham. Designed by Amyas Connell, and completed in 1929, this house was one the first modernist houses in the country and one of the most infamous due to the publicity after it was built, as Betjeman says “..all Buckinghamshire was scandalised..” Connell designed the house for Professor Bernard Ashmole, then Professor of Art and Archaeology at the University of London. Connell and Ashmole met in Rome at the British School, were Connell had been A Rome Scholar. The house is arranged in a Y-plan, with three wings radiating from a hexagonal centre. The stark white walls, sun terraces areas and glazed staircase where all elements borrowed by Connell from contemporary European architecture, particularly Le Corbusier’s early house designs. Despite the appearance of solid concrete walls, as with many early modernist houses in Britain, it is in fact white rendered brick around a concrete frame. Connell's later partnership, Connell, Ward & Lucas, would design four smaller ‘Sun Houses’ on the slopes below High & Over in the 1930’s. Unfortunately the dramatic effect of these four modernist houses on the hill has been denuded by the 1960’s estate of detached houses now surrounding them, something Betjeman notes in the film. “Metro-Land” ends with Betjeman visiting the abandoned stations of Quainton Road and Verneys Junction, reminiscing over waiting for trains at the stations when it was still active and ending the documentary with the words “Grass triumphs. And I must say I’m rather glad”. Of course this wistfulness and melancholy was fully in keeping with Betjemans poetry and especially his later works. So while the ‘shock of the new’ wasn’t particularly new or shocking even when “Metro-Land” was filmed, it allows us to see some of Metro-lands modernist architecture along with the characters and traditions that make this region so interesting. We are hoping to tread in the footprints of John Betjeman in producing “ A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land”, a guide to the art deco and modernist buildings of the region. Follow this link to help make this possible and see the great rewards for pledging Pledge for A Guide to Modernism in Metro-Land
Tony Blair promised “Education, education, education” when he came into office, and that slogan quickly turned to “demolition, demolition, demolition” as the new wave of school building dispensed with the post war school. Following the destruction of The Blitz and the establishment of the post war social consensus, hundreds of schools were built throughout Britain, with local authorities employing young architects to design cutting edge buildings. These structures of concrete, steel and glass, housed thousands of pupils through their school years until they were replaced by their brightly clad successors. Although this occurred throughout the country, we will look at some examples from London. H.T. Cadbury-Brown, known as Jim to his friends, worked as an assistant to Erno Goldfinger and later as part of the Festival of Britain team, before designing Ashmount Primary School (1958) in Hornsey, Islington. Cadbury-Brown designed the school for London County Council using the Hills steel frame system to create a two storey curtain wall formed of green frosted glass. The front of the school was also adorned with a bronze sculpted cockerel by John Willatts, part of the post war effort to adorn new schools with contemporary art. The effect of the sheer glass wall became denuded over time as individual panels were replaced with different coloured glass or plywood. The building was rejected for listing in 2005 and after years of lying empty finally demolished in 2016. One of the most famous post war schools to be demolished is probably Pimlico School (1967-70). Designed by John Bancroft of the GLC Architects Department schools group, the building was described by the Architects Journal on its opening as “a battleship” and also “an ancient monument of the future”. Bancroft designed the building as a machine for learning, with exterior walls eliminated to be replaced with large areas of glass with automatic heating, ventilation and sunshades to control the environment. Unfortunately this environmental control was not perfect and pupils and staff often complained of the excessive temperatures the glazing produced. The school was placed in a sunken site with the building arranged with projecting suspended floors and an internal street concourse. As some aspects of the machine system failed and were not replaced, the building went into a death cycle until it was deemed to be unusable. A story familiar to anyone with a passing interest in post war architecture. Despite the efforts of the 20th Century Society and architects such as Richard Rogers, the school was demolished in 2014. A lesser known but equally progressive school design also no longer with us was that for the Frank Barnes School for the Deaf in Camden (1977) by Ivor Plummer. The school was designed by the GLC to accommodate for the hearing loss and sensitivity of the pupils; the north walls of the school were extra thick to prevent noise pollution, the south end was largely glazed to allow plenty of light for visual communication and fixed hearing equipment was installed throughout. Due to a reduction in pupil numbers from within the borough the school was demolished in 2010 with a smaller scale scheme built in its place. To return to the borough of Islington, a number of schools built from the mid 1960’s have all been demolished in recent years. Mainly built by the GLC in collaboration with the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), these schools were designed in a tough, brutalist style of the 60’s that had fallen out of favour by the time New Labour’s Buildings Schools for the Future programme ensured their demise. Risinghill Comprehensive (1962) by the Architects Co-Partnership, Highbury Grove (1967) by James Cubitt & Partners, Islington Green (1965) by Scherrer & Hicks, Rosemary Primary (1972) by Jake Brown and Hungerford Primary (1972) by Roger Walters have all been demolished. The only surviving part of those schools is William Mitchell's mosaic wall at Islington Green, preserved in the replacement building thanks to its Grade II listing. Many other post war schools throughout London and the UK have been demolished, and others are threatened with the same fate. However there is some good news with a number of examples listed within the last few years and others still thriving. Erno Goldfinger's Haggerston School for Girls in Hackney (1962-67) was listed in 2004, and the nearby Stoke Newington School (1970) by Stillman & Eastwick-Field was refurbished by Jestico & Whiles in 2009. Compared to the buildings produced by the school building programmes of Middlesex in 1930’s and Hertfordshire in the late 1940’s and 50’s, many of which are still in use, the school's produced by the post war architects of the 1960’s and 70’s are rapidly diminishing. Despite the reevaluation of brutalism and municipal modernism, the designs produced by the likes of the GLC and ILEA are seen as out of date and ripe for redevelopment. However as we have seen with the recent closure of PFI schools in Edinburgh, the schools produced in the latest wave of building are anything but made to last, and we may see the concrete and glass designs looked at with new appreciation. This article originally appeared as "School's Out: The Destruction of the Post War School" in Modernist Magazine #24 GONE
Thank you to everyone who came on Saturday to our Open House London walking tour of Stanmore's Art Deco & Modernist houses. It was our biggest turn out in the three years of the tours, over 130 people! Thank you also to the home owners who answered our questions. Here are the tour notes for anyone that didn't manage to get a copy of the handout, plus a few vintage photos so you can compare what we saw to how the houses originally looked. Metroland Metro-Land was created by the extension of the Metropolitan Railway out of London and into Middlesex and the home counties. Land leftover from the construction of the new line was used for speculative housing, and formerly sleepy towns and villages like Wembley, Harrow, Pinner and Ruislip experienced a population boom in the first half of the 20th century.The default architectural style of these new leafy suburbs was Tudorbethan, as seen at nearby Canons Park. A mix of traditional styles on the exterior, matched by the comforts of modernity inside. Modernism was the upcoming style of the era, spreading to Britain from Europe. The houses we will see today, as well as other examples like Charles Holden’s tube stations and George Coles’ cinemas, brought art deco and international style modernism to the growing suburbs. Stanmore Stanmore also underwent a growth spurt after the new Metropolitan Railway (now Jubilee Line) terminus, designed by Charles W. Clark, was built in 1932. This area was part of the Warren House estate, founded by the first Duke of Chandos. In 1922 the house was inherited by Sir John Fitzgerald, and he decided to sell parcels of the land off for development. The company initially given the rights folded without building anything, with construction not taking place until the 1930’s. Kerry Avenue Architect Gerald Lacoste was given the commission to build houses on Kerry Avenue. These designs were intended to be part of larger modernist style estate, but 6 houses where the extent of the plan. Lacoste was only 27 at the time of the Kerry Avenue commissions and had previously been assistant to architects Edwin Lutyens and Oswald Milne. His six houses share many similar features with the Valencia Rd buildings; flat roofs, rounded staircase towers, white walls; but are more circumspect in appearance. The houses are designed to be similar as a group but not monotonous, using the same elements in differing arrangements. Like the Douglas Wood houses, the Kerry Ave buildings are constructed of brick, but have a mixture of exposed brick and snowcrete finishes. These houses were completed in 1937, and are now part of a conservation area along with the Valencia Road houses. Valencia Road The Valencia Road section was developed by Douglas Wood Architects. Although they were granted permission for development in 1931, the houses were not built until 1935. Nos. 2-10 were designed by the firm in the international modernist style with plain rendered walls, staircase towers and sun decks. The houses have an obvious vertical emphasis, with the staircase towers, vertical window strips and sun decks adding the bulk of the buildings, already emphasized by their position on a slope. The large windows and sun decks came from the growing awareness and fashionability of the health benefits of sunlight and sun bathing. The houses are constructed of brick and finished in snowcrete, which is a white cement used for rendering, to give the impression of concrete. Building the houses in brick probably happened because there was a shortage of building firms who had expertise in constructing in reinforced concrete in the 1930’s. Nos 4&6 were built as a symmetrical pair, and have rounded tower staircases. Nos 8 and 10 are also very similar to each other, whilst not quite being identical. No.2 was originally similar to its immediate neighbour, but has been altered. 14 & 16 Kerry Avenue At the northern end of Kerry Avenue are two individual modernist houses, No.14 designed by RH Uren for himself in 1937, and its neighbour No.16 designed by Gerd Kaufmann in 1968. No.14 is built in yellow brick in the international style similar to the other houses in the area. Uren was a New Zealand born architect who moved to Britain in 1930. His big break was his winning design for Hornsey Town Hall in 1933. He designed a number of other buildings in Britain, including Rayners Lane Tube station (1938) and the Granada Woolwich cinema (1937). No.16 is a much later building, designed and built in 1968 by the architect Gerd Kaufmann for Cherrill & Ian Scheer. Cherrill Scheer, heir to the Hille Furniture family, grew up at No.14. Like its neighbours, it is constructed of brick, with large windows to create differing light levels in each room. Kaufmann is known mainly for his suburban houses, with other examples here in Stanmore, as well as Mill Hill and Hampstead. Warren Fields Unrecognisable today, these twin apartment blocks were designed by architect and engineer Owen Williams and built in 1936. Designed in an austere fashion and built in concrete, the buildings have undergone successive refurbishments and extensions. Williams is not known for his domestic designs so it is a shame these buildings have ended up as they have. Halsbury Close Nos 1 & 2 Halsbury Close were designed by emigre architect Rudolf Frankel, who fled to Britain from Germany via Romania in 1933. No.1, built in 1938 for Frankel's sister, is made up of two brick cubes, one for a garage and one for the main house. The house also features a cut away corner that opens out onto the garden. No.2, built for himself also in 1938, is a simple box form finished in render and with tile hanging on the second floor. Frankel mainly produced industrial buildings in Britain, designing factories in London and Cheshire before moving to America in 1950. Aylmer Close
This close on the private Aylmer Road estate features a couple of interesting post war houses. No.1, designed by Edward Samuel in 1963, is a long low bungalow, built of brick, concrete and wood, and is Grade II listed. According to Wikipedia, Stanley Kubrick wanted to use the house in A Clockwork Orange.The owner, Ernest Shelton refused, and Kubrick instead used Team 4’s Skybreak House in Radlett. No.2 is a brutalist style concrete house, designed by Gerd Kaufmann in 1967, designer of No.16 Kerry Avenue, and it echoes in its design the 1930’s houses of Kerry Ave & Valencia Rd, which its circular staircase tower and flat roof. Tuesday 19th September sees the 85th anniversary of the opening of the first five stations of the Cockfosters extension on the Piccadilly Line. These five stations; Manor House, Turnpike Lane, Wood Green, Bounds Green and Arnos Grove, were one of the first sets of modernist designed public buildings to be built in Britain. They also showcased the aesthetic qualities Charles Holden and Frank Pick, the CEO of the London Transport Passenger Board, had crafted since working together from the mid 1920’s. These stations were to act as adverts for the underground network; communicating modernity, speed and ease of use; as well as acting a civic hubs, integrating transport, commerce and even education. In this blog we will look at those first five stations and the the ideas that went into their design. The Piccadilly line opened in 1906, but by the mid 1920’s only extended from Finsbury Park to Hammersmith. Plans were made to extend the line, and after a delay due to WWI, work eventually began in the early 1930’s. Extensions were planned westward, to Uxbridge and Hounslow, and eastward to Cockfosters. Holden was put in overall charge of the designs of the stations on both extensions. The whole project was completed very quickly, from Holden being commissioned in April 1931 to completion of the first buildings in September 1932. Manor House The first station on the extension is Manor House. Manor House has a small above ground entrance and nine street level entrances, originally connected to a tram stop, which was cancelled in 1938. The stations most interesting design features are the ticket hall ceilings design of interlocking concentric circles, and the Harold Stabler ventilation grilles on the platform. Each station originally had these grilles, each supposedly representing the history and legends of each area. Turnpike Lane Turnpike Lane is the next station on the line.The station building is formed of a large square, a variation on Holden’s Sudbury Box, constructed in brick with two ventilation towers. The ticket hall is sunken, allowing access from the various pedestrian tunnels.The original design featured a bus station and tram stops, part of Pick’s vision of having an integrated transport network that serves as a civic hub. Indeed Turnpike Lane was Pick’s favourite underground station due to the success of the design in integrating the different above ground transport elements. The bus station was refurbished in the late 1990’s by the Rogers Partnership. Wood Green Unusually for Holden's Piccadilly Line stations, Wood Green is part of a parade. It was built between two existing 19th century buildings, and has a curved brick frontage with two ventilation towers, one having been extended at some point. Like all the stations on this extension it is constructed from a concrete frame infilled with Buckinghamshire multi-coloured face bricks. Unlike many of the Piccadilly line extension stations, the ticket hall is elliptically shaped rather than rectangular. The interior, which originally featured an exhibition space, has been altered from the original with the addition of the ticket offices on the southern end, and much of the interior fixtures and fittings are replacements. Bounds Green Bounds Green station was designed by architect C.H. James, who gave the station an octagonal ticket hall, another variation on Holden's ‘Sudbury Box’ design.The eight sided shape allows more windows in the ticket hall than other Holden stations. At the bottom of the escalators are bronze uplighters, originally found at all of the extension stations, but some have now been removed. The station was hit by a Luftwaffe bomb on October 13th 1940, and killing 19 people who were sheltering from an air raid. Stations of course were often used as air raid shelters during World War 2. Although Holden was responsible for the design of each station on the extension, quite often his involvement would be to visit the site and create a sketch of the above ground building and a basic plan, leaving others like Stanley Heaps and C.H. James to sort out the fine points such as the platforms and engineering details. Obviously with the building of so many stations so quickly it was necessary for Holden to delegate. Frank Pick had the final say on each design, before Holden passed them on to his assistants. Arnos Grove Arnos Grove station is considered by many to be Holden's masterpiece and one of the best buildings of the 20th century. It is formed of a circular booking hall on a square base, which was designed to allow passenger flow and creates an impressive interior space. A single concrete pillar supports the roof, with the original passimeter ticket office at the base. The booking hall also features original wooden telephone booths, which were restored in 2000. Holden's influence for his design here may have been Stockholm City Library, designed by Gunnar Asplund and visited by Pick and Holden on their 1930 trip, or possibly a groundsman's lodge in Midhurst designed by Holden in 1904. Despite all the accolades it was one of Frank Pick’s least favourite designs, and he approved the scheme only after much persuasion. Here as at Holden’s other stations can be seen his Arts and Crafts influence, through the care he takes in selecting and combining various different materials like brick, concrete, wood and glass. The new Piccadilly line stations were positively received by the contemporary architecture and general press, and even hosted a Royal visit with the prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) taking a ride between Wood Green and Hyde Park Corner. Of the five stations that were opened on 19th September 1932, only Manor House is not listed. The Piccadilly Line stations, particularity Arnos Grove and Southgate which opened in 1933, are looked on as the crowning achievements of Charles Holden and Frank Pick's efforts in creating works of high design that serve the public. Southgate and Oakwood opened on March 13th 1933, with Cockfosters becoming the last station on the extension on July 31 the same year. We will celebrate their anniversaries next year. It’s that time of year again, when the architecturally minded can see inside buildings usually closed to prying eyes. There are hundreds of buildings ready to be visited, and although this year there seems to a heavy emphasis on the contemporary, there are plenty of modernist, art deco and brutalist buildings to visit. Many of the old favorites are available to visit; the National Theatre, the Barbican, Priory Green and many more. We won’t list them all, but instead will highlight the lesser known gems. A trio of cinemas start us off. The wonderful art deco Rayners Lane Grosvenor (now the Zoroastrian Centre) by FE Bromige is a great place to start. Another cinema by Bromige, the Rio in Dalston is also open, and features a photography exhibition on the history of Dalston’s cinemas. However the most spectacular cinema on show is the former Tooting Granada (now a Bingo hall) designed by Cecil Masey and RH Uren, with an amazing gothic interior by Theodore Komisarjevsky. A few more inter war beauties are worth a visit. 64 Heath Drive in Gidea Park by Tecton is a stunning modernist house. It is open both Saturday and Sunday afternoon is is well worth the long tube journey! Another modernist dwelling worth the journey is Pullman Court in Streatham. Designed by Frederick Gibberd and built in 1936, it is open on Sunday from 11am-6pm. Closer in is Bruno Court in Hackney, now an apartment block but originally an extension to the German Hospital, designed in 1934 by the firm of Burnet, Tait and Lorne in a moderne style. Also moderne in appearance is the QE2 Stadium in Enfield, designed in 1938 but completed in 1952. The stadium features a distinctive brick drum staircase tower. The modernist church is well represented, with two great Post war example sin St Paul’s, Bow Common by Maguire & Murray and St Boniface in Whitechapel by Donald Plaskett Marshall & partners both well worth visiting. Further east is Wanstead Quaker Meeting House, designed in 1968 by Norman Frith, definitely worth a look on the Sunday if you are nearby. Making it’s Open House debut is St. Alban, North Harrow by AW Kenyon. This interwar Scandinavian influenced, brick church is celebrating it’s 80th birthday this year. Schools are also well represented, with examples from the interwar and postwar periods. Uphall Primary in Barking is a great example of streamline moderne style architecture from 1934. Two primary schools from the postwar period worth seeing are Hallfield Primary, Paddington by Denys Lasdun (open Saturday) and Greenside Primary, Hammersmith by Erno Goldfinger (open Sunday). Goldfinger's only secondary school, Haggerston Girls School in Hackney is also open Saturday. Of course everyone likes to see inside someone else's home, and the post war example is well served. On the Sunday there are resident led tours of Eric Lyons Span estate in Greenwich, The Keep, built in 1957. The two Walter Segal influenced self build estates in Lewisham are open on the Sunday, Walters Way and Segal Close. Also open on Sunday, is the Darke House in Richmond, designed by Geoffrey Darke of Darbourne & Darke for himself. If estates are more your thing you can visit Peter Tabori’s Stoneleigh Terrace, built as part of the Highgate New Town project in 1972. Two other estates worth visiting are Central Hill in Lambeth and Thamesmead in Bexley. Both are interesting example so the post war estate and both are threatened with demolition meaning this could be your last chance to see them. Another intriguing debut this year is that of the so called Pearl of Metro-Land, a 1924 semi detached house resorted to it’s original condition and jazzed up with a Mondrian makeover. Of course we will also be doing our bit for the modernist side of things and hosting our walking tour of Stanmore's Art Deco and Modernist Houses. Taking place on the Saturday at 10am and 2pm we will be exploring the art deco houses of the Warren Estate before venturing up Stanmore Hill to see some more post war example of Modernism in Metro-Land. More details on the tour here. We hope you will come and say hello!
Saturday August 26th marks the birthday of John Partridge, part of the quartet of architects that made up the firm Howell Killick Partridge Amis. Partridge died last year at the age of 91, but he and his colleagues work lives on in a new book by Geraint Franklin, Howell Killick Partridge Amis, published by Historic England. Historic England were kind enough to send us a copy and we are happy to report it is a wonderful book, in keeping with their 20th Century Architects series, which has featured book on the careers of Leonard Manasseh, Chamberlin Powell & Bon and Wells Coates among others. Beginning with the meeting of the four architects at the London Council County Architect's Department and their part in the design of the Alton West Estate, the book charts HPKA’s journey from young guns to elder statesman of the architectural scene. Franklin’s book takes an in depth look at their work for the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as designs for schools (such as Acland Burghley), local authorities (including Haringey, Harrow and Islington) and private commissions (including houses in Edgware). Throughout the book the text is supported and enlivened by new photographs from James O.Davies, as well as images and sketches from HKPA’s own archives. The book finished with a comprehensive list of HPKA's projects, built and unbuilt. Howell Killick Partridge Amis is a great addition to the 20th Century Architects series, and we eagerly await further volumes.
Howell Killick Partridge Amis is available directly from the Historic England website HERE. Or if you are a 20th Century Society member you can get a 20% discount on the book HERE. |
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