Ealing
Until the first half of the 20th century, the borough of Ealing, much like Brent and Barnet, was split between a more urban southern half and a rural northern half. Towns like Acton and Ealing rose to prominence in the Victorian era, with Ealing earning the sobriquet “Queen of the Suburbs”. Subsequently much of the architecture in these areas are generally Victorian and Edwardian, with rows of terraces making up much of the housing stock. When modernist design did emerge it tended in the form of cinemas or factories in the more industrial areas like Acton. Conversely the more rural areas such as Perivale, Greenford and Northolt were ripe for more expansive building. The Hanger Hill estate provided a fairly blank canvas for Welch, Cachemaille-Day & Lander to design houses, a hotel and a tube station.
The underground was not the only mode of transport that brought modernism to the suburbs, The opening of new arterial roads such as Western Avenue, provided room for Art Deco factories by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, whose Hoover Building has become such a fixture of the London end of the A40. Ealing has its fair share of Charles Holden stations, but perhaps more interesting are the Central Line stations, designed before World War II and built afterwards. There are also a number of impressive post war buildings in the area with post war churches, by Maguire & Murray and Michael Farey, and a High Tech office and warehouse building in Greenford by Norman Foster for IBM.
The underground was not the only mode of transport that brought modernism to the suburbs, The opening of new arterial roads such as Western Avenue, provided room for Art Deco factories by Wallis, Gilbert & Partners, whose Hoover Building has become such a fixture of the London end of the A40. Ealing has its fair share of Charles Holden stations, but perhaps more interesting are the Central Line stations, designed before World War II and built afterwards. There are also a number of impressive post war buildings in the area with post war churches, by Maguire & Murray and Michael Farey, and a High Tech office and warehouse building in Greenford by Norman Foster for IBM.