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106. The roof at Stratford

10 June 2013
Architecture, Central line, Jubilee line, Zone 3
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Stratford upon havenOK, it’s not a proper Underground station. In fact, Underground trains make up barely a third of what passes through its walls.

But the present incarnation of Stratford would not exist were it not for the extension of the Jubilee line in the 1990s, and that’s enough of a reason to admit it here.

You want more reasons? Why, in the words of the poster for Thunderball: look up, look down – and look out! Stratford does it everywhere!

Watching you watching meThat’s yours truly in the centre, trying to capture some of what Ian Fleming would call the “gunmetal splendour” of this beast of a building.

Chris Wilkinson and Jim Eyre started with a few dashes on a pencil sketch of the roof in 1994 and ended up delivering a resplendent full stop to the Jubilee line in 1999. Or maybe semi-colon is a more apt punctuation point, given Stratford’s purpose as part-terminus, part-gateway to everywhere from mainland Europe to Westfield shopping centre.

In keeping with Thunderball’s tag-line, an exclamation mark would just as well suffice. For this is at heart a confoundedly beautiful place, defying the tangle of lines and tumult of passengers that threaten discord, and instead offering a sort of harmonious, lyrical melee.

It’s all down, or rather up, to the roof.

The roof provides the scope for that dazzling glass facade, reflecting not just you but seemingly half of Stratford and a decent chunk of the sky. It allows for the kind of jutting architectural flourishes featured in the first photo. And its interior curves help to soften an atmosphere that’s already been made to feel as open and airy as is possible in the 20th busiest station in the UK:

The great curveThe multi-level layout plus the enormous mezzanine allow anyone predisposed to milling or moping to get up close to the roof, but also to gaze on people below.

I found that during London 2012 those views down on to the station floor afforded just as much of a spectacle than anything going on inside the Olympic Park. But then watching something working by design, as opposed to luck, chance and accident, is always more preferable. Especially if you’re a non-sportsman.

Parallel linesFrom whatever angle, even when all you’re looking at are angles, Stratford station roof is the hat perched jauntily sideways on the head of the Underground.

You can see for miles. You can also see four miles’ of people. But either is fine.

Look out!

Full stop

104. The platforms at Loughton

3 June 2013
Architecture, Central line, Designs, Numbers 91-105, Zone 6
2 Comments

A roundel of roundelsWhat’s the collective noun for a group of roundels?

A charm? I know it already applies to goldfinches, but I don’t think these nouns are bespoke. I rather like congregation, despite it sounding a bit ecclesiastical. Murmuration is lovely. I always murmur when I see a roundel, mostly in my head but sometimes out loud, which in turn prompts others to murmur back, but rarely in the same spirit of appreciation.

Or how about “a Johnston of roundels”? It’d be unique, memorable, and something of a tribute to the man whose typeface they all carry. Though I’m not sure how Sue, or descendants of Brian, would react.

Well, whatever the noun is, or should be, it exists at Loughton. The station’s platforms are a feast of dashing architecture and elegant design, with these spirited battalions of roundels at the heart.

Platform soulI’ve already raved about the ticket hall. The platforms are just as stunning. Giant canopies curve above both of them, sailing majestically and uncompromisingly over the passengers below while throwing romantic shapes against the sky.

There’s an endearing pomposity about this kind of edifice. It’s been conceived and realised in such a lofty fashion for such an otherwise perfunctory purpose. I have infinite amount of time for anyone who thinks a platform canopy isn’t just a way of keeping people dry in the rain; it’s a way of keeping people dry in the rain IN STYLE.

Lucky old RoseFlower beds at the far ends of the platforms add dabs of organic colour to the mix. The changing of the seasons must mean the station never quite looks the same all year round. It follows that if you’re a regular user of Loughton, your relationship with the station is also forever changing.

The same goes, incidentally, for the exterior of the ticket hall, whose shops have, in the few months since the last time I was here, changed hands yet again. Yes, The Flower Stop is no more, ditto Homme Fatal. Sob.

Yes, another oneOh look, another one – and this time embedded in concrete armour, looking indomitable in the sun.

What platform isles of wonder. There’s a collective noun of greatness at Loughton. In fact, maybe that’s it. A Loughton of roundels.

Erm…

102. The ticket hall at Hanger Lane

24 May 2013
Architecture, Central line, Numbers 91-105, Zone 3
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Like a circle in a spiralKenneth Williams deploys many persuasive turns of phrase throughout his wonderful diaries, sometimes without grace, sometimes without merit, but never without purpose. One of my favourites is his depiction of himself “sat in the flat, revolving memories.” It’s an immensely attractive description for the otherwise somewhat unexceptional business of brooding, or moping, or – to use another of Kenny’s terms – drearing about.

It also captures very neatly the cyclical nature of contemplation: that sense of turning the same things over and over, and of forever returning to dwell on a matter over which you’ve pondered many times, not always without regret.

The ticket hall at Hanger Lane is a place that smoothly inverts Williams’ wise words, by way of revolving memories not within but around you.

It does this in a literal sense, its resplendent curved interior swooping this way and that, each post-war trinket and trimming igniting a little firework of nostalgia that pops and crackles inside your head. Look over there: a bit of tatty 1950s signage. And there: an uplighter that harks back to the 30s. That typeface: doesn’t it look a touch 1980s? As for that notice on the toilet door, that must be close to 40 years old. Yikes: am I really almost the same age?

But it also does it in an allusive sense. This ticket hall contrives somehow to send other associations spinning through your mind: memories of school assembly halls, of whirling zoetropes in science museums, of dust particles dancing in ribbons of sunlight in provincial libraries, of drums and top hats and birthday cakes and merry-go-rounds and doctor’s waiting rooms and party games and giant, giant silences in giant, giant spaces.

Hanger Lane is in my ears, and in my eyesNow, just as one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor, so one person’s revolving memory bank is another person’s pile of bricks. Hanger Lane’s elegance can’t bewitch everyone in the same way, or else it would cease to be special. I’m sure it suffers by sharing a name with the eponymous gyratory, even though – as I’ve already suggested – that particular tangle of roads doesn’t quite deserve such a fearsome reputation.

It also has its roots not in the Underground but – heavens – British Rail, whose Western Region architect Peter MacIver conceived the building in an era of austerity that boasted a very different cultural template to that being advanced politically today. (I really must stop moaning about Michael Gove on this blog.)

Yet maybe all these things make me love the place all the more. It wants to be different, it tries to distinguish itself, it defies your expectations… and, to my mind, it succeeds utterly. It not only revolves memories, it evolves them as well. Even the simple, formal elegance of the station’s exterior, bombarded with gales of traffic noise and jostled by neighbouring gangs of blighted shopfronts, keeps my senses transfixed.

Yes, I’m afraid I’m going to have to say it. Hanger Lane is in my ears, and in my eyes.

Blue surburban skies