Grade I protection for London Underground’s iconic HQ

55, Broadway



First use of cruciform plan for a London office building



London Underground’s iconic HQ and the Tube station it was built over today took their place alongside Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London as one of the capital's most important buildings. 55 Broadway and St James's Park station have been awarded Grade I listed status, granting it extra protection from redevelopment and recognising its “great historical significance”. The building above the platforms, known as 55 Broadway, was built as the headquarters of London Underground. When completed in 1929 it was the tallest building in London at 174 feet. Holden also used a team of emerging young artists to embellish the building, including Eric Gill and Eric Aumonier, as well as Moore and Epstein. English Heritage said: “The sculpture significantly boosts the case for upgrading 55 Broadway to Grade I.” Ten decorative features were carved by artists into its Portland stone facade but one, called Day, had to be altered as it showed a naked boy. Its sculptor, Jacob Epstein, chiselled one-and-a-half inches from the boy's penis in a concession to Twenties sensitivities.




Henry Moore "West Wind"








Jacob Epstein "Day"



When it was completed in 1929, The London Underground's new headquarters, named after its postal address of 55, Broadway, was London's tallest office block. A skyscraper of its day, it is now dwarfed by almost every major office building in the city. But that doesn't stop it from appearing monumental. Inside it houses the headquarters of London Underground, St. James's Park Station and the small Broadway shopping arcade.





Traders protesting high rents in the Broadway shopping arcade




55 Broadway - Original Ground Floor layout



In 1926 The Underground Group commissioned 55 Broadway, over St James's Park station, as its new headquarters. It was to replace Electric Railway House, whose offices were too cramped for the growing organisation. The headquarters was to symbolise the company's vision of public transport being at the heart of London's social and commercial life. Frank Pick, assistant managing director of the Underground Group, commissioned the architect Charles Holden of the firm Adams Holden and Pearson to design the building. On its completion in 1929, 55 Broadway was the tallest building in London on one side overlooking the Houses of Parliament and on the other side overlooking Buckingham Palace. The Directors had a clear idea of their place in the world! However, building restrictions prevented the floors above the seventh being used as offices. The modern and assertive design was considered an architectural masterpiece with the cruciform layout enabling natural light and ventilation throughout. It was awarded the London Architectural Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1929.




Charles Holden 1875 - 1960



Designed by architect Charles Holden, and considered to be his finest work, 55 Broadway was inspired by the skyscrapers of New York and heralded the construction of tall buildings in London by helping to loosen height restrictions. Listings Minister John Penrose said: “When this building opened it represented the height of sophistication. It remains one of the most unaltered Underground stations on the network and a fantastic example of London's architecture at its best.”





Platform kiosk, St. James's Park 1935



The site was challenging because of its irregular shape, and the District line was only 24 feet below the surface. The solution was a cross-shaped layout, which allowed passengers to walk through the ground floor of the office to reach the ticket hall. It also incorporated Henry Moore's first public commission and his only work to show the human figure in motion. The building was granted Grade II status in 1970. Despite its west wing being damaged in the Second World War, it remains largely unchanged. It has the only Underground concourse with original platform finishes from the Twenties, namely the vitreous enamel cladding to the walls, and enamel signs announcing the name of the station. There are also original platform benches and an original timber kiosk, now a display cabinet. The rest of the building is in a remarkably good state, with the original travertine marble-clad landings on each floor, ground floor lobby, stair hall, and shopping arcade all intact.




1929 - The tallest office building in London



The builders of 55, Broadway saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.











As for the Grade I listing your correspondent observed prophetically in April 2008;



“With property values in London becoming more unreal due to Non Doms. and the like, no doubt some wide boys (Generally called “consultants” or “rising stars”) will look at the possibility of asset stripping this unique listed building and creating a “new culture” in some god forsaken rented cubicle factory. No doubt this will promote co-operative working by having an atrium with some poor imitation of a Calder mobile representing a tube train and a statue of an ordinary tube worker looking up at it saying “this costs a fortune and we’ll never own it!” The same wide boy asset strippers would never think it is sensible to sell their own house and move into a trailer park. “




St. James Park Station entrance











English Heritage probably clocked the threat to 55, Broadway in an article in the Estates Gazette in February 2009 where TfL’s Property Chief claimed bragging rights;



“Property chief Anthony Bickmore has now put the property under the spotlight for the first time as part of his far-reaching plans to modernise the portfolio.” This was accompanied by the usual anonymous dose of toe curling Property Puffers propaganda. “The building is no longer fit for purpose. TfL is taking advice on the potential for a major redevelopment of what is a prime West End site and this could lead to a sale.”



Indeed, not fit for purpose? Fully paid for, naturally ventilated award winning modern building which won a RIBA Gold Medal and is centrally located and built in the airspace above a Tube station? Not fit for purpose? First building in Britain to put all the services in a central core minimising corridors and maximising usable space? Certainly such a building wouldn’t generate fees for the asset strippers, property churners and predatory consultants. Hopefully the decline in the commercial property market combined with the protection of Grade 1 listing will put a damper on such quick buck thoughts and 55, Broadway will continue to proclaim the purpose stated on the early Underground poster “Always at your service.”









For more about 55, Broadway;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html



For more about Charles Holden;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/holden-goes-underground.html



For more on Architecture and Design see ArchiBlogs in the Blog sidebar>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

Grade I protection for London Underground’s iconic HQ

55, Broadway



First use of cruciform plan for a London office building



London Underground’s iconic HQ and the Tube station it was built over today took their place alongside Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London as one of the capital's most important buildings. 55 Broadway and St James's Park station have been awarded Grade I listed status, granting it extra protection from redevelopment and recognising its “great historical significance”. The building above the platforms, known as 55 Broadway, was built as the headquarters of London Underground. When completed in 1929 it was the tallest building in London at 174 feet. Holden also used a team of emerging young artists to embellish the building, including Eric Gill and Eric Aumonier, as well as Moore and Epstein. English Heritage said: “The sculpture significantly boosts the case for upgrading 55 Broadway to Grade I.” Ten decorative features were carved by artists into its Portland stone facade but one, called Day, had to be altered as it showed a naked boy. Its sculptor, Jacob Epstein, chiselled one-and-a-half inches from the boy's penis in a concession to Twenties sensitivities.




Henry Moore "West Wind"








Jacob Epstein "Day"



When it was completed in 1929, The London Underground's new headquarters, named after its postal address of 55, Broadway, was London's tallest office block. A skyscraper of its day, it is now dwarfed by almost every major office building in the city. But that doesn't stop it from appearing monumental. Inside it houses the headquarters of London Underground, St. James's Park Station and the small Broadway shopping arcade.





Traders protesting high rents in the Broadway shopping arcade




55 Broadway - Original Ground Floor layout



In 1926 The Underground Group commissioned 55 Broadway, over St James's Park station, as its new headquarters. It was to replace Electric Railway House, whose offices were too cramped for the growing organisation. The headquarters was to symbolise the company's vision of public transport being at the heart of London's social and commercial life. Frank Pick, assistant managing director of the Underground Group, commissioned the architect Charles Holden of the firm Adams Holden and Pearson to design the building. On its completion in 1929, 55 Broadway was the tallest building in London on one side overlooking the Houses of Parliament and on the other side overlooking Buckingham Palace. The Directors had a clear idea of their place in the world! However, building restrictions prevented the floors above the seventh being used as offices. The modern and assertive design was considered an architectural masterpiece with the cruciform layout enabling natural light and ventilation throughout. It was awarded the London Architectural Medal by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1929.




Charles Holden 1875 - 1960



Designed by architect Charles Holden, and considered to be his finest work, 55 Broadway was inspired by the skyscrapers of New York and heralded the construction of tall buildings in London by helping to loosen height restrictions. Listings Minister John Penrose said: “When this building opened it represented the height of sophistication. It remains one of the most unaltered Underground stations on the network and a fantastic example of London's architecture at its best.”





Platform kiosk, St. James's Park 1935



The site was challenging because of its irregular shape, and the District line was only 24 feet below the surface. The solution was a cross-shaped layout, which allowed passengers to walk through the ground floor of the office to reach the ticket hall. It also incorporated Henry Moore's first public commission and his only work to show the human figure in motion. The building was granted Grade II status in 1970. Despite its west wing being damaged in the Second World War, it remains largely unchanged. It has the only Underground concourse with original platform finishes from the Twenties, namely the vitreous enamel cladding to the walls, and enamel signs announcing the name of the station. There are also original platform benches and an original timber kiosk, now a display cabinet. The rest of the building is in a remarkably good state, with the original travertine marble-clad landings on each floor, ground floor lobby, stair hall, and shopping arcade all intact.




1929 - The tallest office building in London



The builders of 55, Broadway saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.











As for the Grade I listing your correspondent observed prophetically in April 2008;



“With property values in London becoming more unreal due to Non Doms. and the like, no doubt some wide boys (Generally called “consultants” or “rising stars”) will look at the possibility of asset stripping this unique listed building and creating a “new culture” in some god forsaken rented cubicle factory. No doubt this will promote co-operative working by having an atrium with some poor imitation of a Calder mobile representing a tube train and a statue of an ordinary tube worker looking up at it saying “this costs a fortune and we’ll never own it!” The same wide boy asset strippers would never think it is sensible to sell their own house and move into a trailer park. “




St. James Park Station entrance











English Heritage probably clocked the threat to 55, Broadway in an article in the Estates Gazette in February 2009 where TfL’s Property Chief claimed bragging rights;



“Property chief Anthony Bickmore has now put the property under the spotlight for the first time as part of his far-reaching plans to modernise the portfolio.” This was accompanied by the usual anonymous dose of toe curling Property Puffers propaganda. “The building is no longer fit for purpose. TfL is taking advice on the potential for a major redevelopment of what is a prime West End site and this could lead to a sale.”



Indeed, not fit for purpose? Fully paid for, naturally ventilated award winning modern building which won a RIBA Gold Medal and is centrally located and built in the airspace above a Tube station? Not fit for purpose? First building in Britain to put all the services in a central core minimising corridors and maximising usable space? Certainly such a building wouldn’t generate fees for the asset strippers, property churners and predatory consultants. Hopefully the decline in the commercial property market combined with the protection of Grade 1 listing will put a damper on such quick buck thoughts and 55, Broadway will continue to proclaim the purpose stated on the early Underground poster “Always at your service.”









For more about 55, Broadway;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html



For more about Charles Holden;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/holden-goes-underground.html



For more on Architecture and Design see ArchiBlogs in the Blog sidebar>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.

Holden goes Underground

Poster for the exhibition at Stockwell Station

One of my architectural heroes, Charles Holden - the architect famed for designing many of the iconic '20s and '30s Tube stations - is being celebrated at a free exhibition now showing at the V&A Museum. When using the Tube on a daily basis it is easy to forget its history, and the energy and vision it took to build them. The latest exhibition at the Architecture Gallery will hopefully act as a reminder, whilst revealing the lasting influence of Charles Holden’s work for London Transport.


Charles Holden


Charles Holden's first commission for the Underground this 1924 entrance to Westminster Station. Unfortunately it was demolished in 1999 when the station was rebuilt

This exhibition examines the designs carried out by Charles Holden and his architectural practice, Adams Holden and Pearson, for London Transport, undoubtedly his greatest and most successful patron. The full range of his work, from stations on the Northern line extension and refurbishment of Piccadilly Circus station through to his creation of a new London Underground headquarters at 55 Broadway and his iconic modernist station designs produced for the Piccadilly line extensions is on show. Holden's relationship with London Transport's chief executive, Frank Pick is also investigated as their collaboration and integrated approach to design and architecture was instrumental in shaping London Transport's corporate brand.


Holden's sketch for Highgate Station entrance - later re-named Archway RIBA Drawings Collection

Holden masterminded the design of 20 or so tube stations – those elegant red brick affairs best seen on the northern stretch of the Piccadilly Line. These in particular show off Holden’s principles of ‘total design’. Interiors, light fittings, clocks and tiles – everything in his buildings was crafted to work together harmoniously. Holden deserves to be better known. A contemporary of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, he too produced buildings of great originality, and, unlike his Scottish counterpart, enjoyed a much longer professional career. Stylistically his buildings are difficult to categorise. But large or small, his buildings stand proud, distinguishable from their neighbours by a strong feeling of mass and line.


South Wimbledon Station

As the Guardian Newspaper's Architectural correspondent (and former London Transport management trainee) Jonathan Glancey observed;

“The first of Charles Holden's tube stations for Frank Pick was Sudbury Town, on the Piccadilly line, opened in 1931. There had been nothing like this distinctly modern yet well-crafted building in Britain before. With typical modesty, Holden, a retiring, teetotal, vegetarian Quaker draper's son from Bolton, Lancashire, chose to describe his first modern masterpiece as "a brick box with a concrete lid. Possibly, just possibly, Holden meant something more.

I can't help thinking that this truly great and still under-rated English architect was thinking of Inigo Jones (1573-1652), who had instigated a revolution in British architecture in the reign of James I when he designed the country's first truly classical buildings. When his client Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, asked Jones to add a chapel "as cheap as a barn" to his smart residential development built around the new Covent Garden piazza, the architect replied "then you shall have the handsomest barn in England". Sudbury Town station is surely transport design's equivalent of St Paul's, Covent Garden.”




Sudbury Town station

Holden is best known for his work for London Underground in the 1920s and 1930s, when his office – Adams, Holden and Pearson – designed a series of underground stations of startling originality, like this at Rayners Lane. These play with basic geometry and volumes, and gain effect from the contrast of forms and materials, not decorative excess. In fact, this drawing of the new Rayners Lane station resembles the architecture itself: both are pared down. People, with their precise shadows, animate the building, not sculpture. Perhaps this architectural purity was regarded as excessive: it has been noted that the main hall of the station should have the addition of windows on either side.


Sketch for Rayners Lane Station




Cockfosters Station

The Directors of London Underground in the 20s and 30s saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.


Ticket Hall with Passimeter


Escalators with bronze uplighters


55, Broadway - London Underground's iconic HQ built in 1929 in the "airspace" above St. James's Park Station

He was not universally admired and his huge complex for London University in Bloomsbury was considered cold by some critics. So much so that George Orwell modelled his Ministry of Truth, in his novel 1984, on Holden's 19 storey Senate House – Orwell's wife worked in the building for the censorship department of the Ministry of Information during WW11. There is a parallel for this as Ian Fleming objected so much to the modernist house the Hungarian architect Erno Goldfinger designed down the road from his house in Willow Road Hampstead that he gave his name to his first Bond villain. In the event Holden’s huge scheme for London University which would have involved buildings set around 17 courtyards was scaled back due to the onset of war.


Senate House. London University

This area around where the exhibition is being hosted at the Victoria and Albert Museum was dubbed by the Victorian press as Albertropolis' a name coined in the 1850s and resurrected in recent years for the 87-acre site south of Hyde Park, purchased by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 with profits from the Great Exhibition. Exhibition Road - whose route the 440 yard subway from South Kensington Underground station follows - forms the spine of “Albertropolis”. The nickname satirised the vision of Prince Albert, the Commission's President, of the area as a centre for education, science and art - an ambition largely realised within a few decades of the Prince's death.



See; The Great Circle Line Journey

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

The Royal Institute of British Artists (RIBA) and the V&A, with help from London Transport Museum, have pulled together this exhibition from original drawings, photographs, posters, film, journals and models from their extensive collections to tell the story behind Holden's modernist stations, many of which still serve Londoners today. It is well worth catching to understand this prolific and underrated architect who nonetheless has been hugely influential and whose designs have stood the test of time.




'Underground Journeys: Charles Holden's designs for London Transport' runs at the V&A+RIBA Architecture Gallery, V&A in South Kensington until February 13, 2011.

Website;

http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/index.html

See also;

Give my regards to 55, Broadway

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

Great British Design Quest

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-british-design-quest.html

Mapping the World

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/mapping-world.html

A night at the Museum

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/01/night-at-museum.html


The Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington

For more see ARCHIBLOGS, TUBE BLOGS and TRANSPORT BLOGS in the Blog sidebar >>>>>

Holden goes Underground

Poster for the exhibition at Stockwell Station

One of my architectural heroes, Charles Holden - the architect famed for designing many of the iconic '20s and '30s Tube stations - is being celebrated at a free exhibition now showing at the V&A Museum. When using the Tube on a daily basis it is easy to forget its history, and the energy and vision it took to build them. The latest exhibition at the Architecture Gallery will hopefully act as a reminder, whilst revealing the lasting influence of Charles Holden’s work for London Transport.


Charles Holden


Charles Holden's first commission for the Underground this 1924 entrance to Westminster Station. Unfortunately it was demolished in 1999 when the station was rebuilt

This exhibition examines the designs carried out by Charles Holden and his architectural practice, Adams Holden and Pearson, for London Transport, undoubtedly his greatest and most successful patron. The full range of his work, from stations on the Northern line extension and refurbishment of Piccadilly Circus station through to his creation of a new London Underground headquarters at 55 Broadway and his iconic modernist station designs produced for the Piccadilly line extensions is on show. Holden's relationship with London Transport's chief executive, Frank Pick is also investigated as their collaboration and integrated approach to design and architecture was instrumental in shaping London Transport's corporate brand.


Holden's sketch for Highgate Station entrance - later re-named Archway RIBA Drawings Collection

Holden masterminded the design of 20 or so tube stations – those elegant red brick affairs best seen on the northern stretch of the Piccadilly Line. These in particular show off Holden’s principles of ‘total design’. Interiors, light fittings, clocks and tiles – everything in his buildings was crafted to work together harmoniously. Holden deserves to be better known. A contemporary of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, he too produced buildings of great originality, and, unlike his Scottish counterpart, enjoyed a much longer professional career. Stylistically his buildings are difficult to categorise. But large or small, his buildings stand proud, distinguishable from their neighbours by a strong feeling of mass and line.


South Wimbledon Station

As the Guardian Newspaper's Architectural correspondent (and former London Transport management trainee) Jonathan Glancey observed;

“The first of Charles Holden's tube stations for Frank Pick was Sudbury Town, on the Piccadilly line, opened in 1931. There had been nothing like this distinctly modern yet well-crafted building in Britain before. With typical modesty, Holden, a retiring, teetotal, vegetarian Quaker draper's son from Bolton, Lancashire, chose to describe his first modern masterpiece as "a brick box with a concrete lid. Possibly, just possibly, Holden meant something more.

I can't help thinking that this truly great and still under-rated English architect was thinking of Inigo Jones (1573-1652), who had instigated a revolution in British architecture in the reign of James I when he designed the country's first truly classical buildings. When his client Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, asked Jones to add a chapel "as cheap as a barn" to his smart residential development built around the new Covent Garden piazza, the architect replied "then you shall have the handsomest barn in England". Sudbury Town station is surely transport design's equivalent of St Paul's, Covent Garden.”




Sudbury Town station

Holden is best known for his work for London Underground in the 1920s and 1930s, when his office – Adams, Holden and Pearson – designed a series of underground stations of startling originality, like this at Rayners Lane. These play with basic geometry and volumes, and gain effect from the contrast of forms and materials, not decorative excess. In fact, this drawing of the new Rayners Lane station resembles the architecture itself: both are pared down. People, with their precise shadows, animate the building, not sculpture. Perhaps this architectural purity was regarded as excessive: it has been noted that the main hall of the station should have the addition of windows on either side.


Sketch for Rayners Lane Station




Cockfosters Station

The Directors of London Underground in the 20s and 30s saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.


Ticket Hall with Passimeter


Escalators with bronze uplighters


55, Broadway - London Underground's iconic HQ built in 1929 in the "airspace" above St. James's Park Station

He was not universally admired and his huge complex for London University in Bloomsbury was considered cold by some critics. So much so that George Orwell modelled his Ministry of Truth, in his novel 1984, on Holden's 19 storey Senate House – Orwell's wife worked in the building for the censorship department of the Ministry of Information during WW11. There is a parallel for this as Ian Fleming objected so much to the modernist house the Hungarian architect Erno Goldfinger designed down the road from his house in Willow Road Hampstead that he gave his name to his first Bond villain. In the event Holden’s huge scheme for London University which would have involved buildings set around 17 courtyards was scaled back due to the onset of war.


Senate House. London University

This area around where the exhibition is being hosted at the Victoria and Albert Museum was dubbed by the Victorian press as Albertropolis' a name coined in the 1850s and resurrected in recent years for the 87-acre site south of Hyde Park, purchased by the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 with profits from the Great Exhibition. Exhibition Road - whose route the 440 yard subway from South Kensington Underground station follows - forms the spine of “Albertropolis”. The nickname satirised the vision of Prince Albert, the Commission's President, of the area as a centre for education, science and art - an ambition largely realised within a few decades of the Prince's death.



See; The Great Circle Line Journey

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

The Royal Institute of British Artists (RIBA) and the V&A, with help from London Transport Museum, have pulled together this exhibition from original drawings, photographs, posters, film, journals and models from their extensive collections to tell the story behind Holden's modernist stations, many of which still serve Londoners today. It is well worth catching to understand this prolific and underrated architect who nonetheless has been hugely influential and whose designs have stood the test of time.




'Underground Journeys: Charles Holden's designs for London Transport' runs at the V&A+RIBA Architecture Gallery, V&A in South Kensington until February 13, 2011.

Website;

http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/index.html

See also;

Give my regards to 55, Broadway

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

Great British Design Quest

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-british-design-quest.html

Mapping the World

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/mapping-world.html

A night at the Museum

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/01/night-at-museum.html


The Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington

For more see ARCHIBLOGS, TUBE BLOGS and TRANSPORT BLOGS in the Blog sidebar >>>>>