129. The tea sign at East Ham

7 September 2013
District line, Hammersmith and City line, Numbers 126-150, Signs, Zone 3, Zone 4
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Tuppence a bagHere’s one of the smallest things to make it into the 150, but one of the sweetest. It’s on the westbound platform at East Ham, high up near the canopy, perpendicular to the tracks.

A cultural historian would be able to take a good guess at its age, likewise a scholar of advertising typography. Just when was tea tuppence a bag (tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag*)? Not since the war, certainly. There’s been a station at East Ham since 1858, though the ticket hall is Edwardian. My guess is the sign hails from sometime between 1902, when the District line first came this way, and 1936, when the Metropolitan arrived. It was painted to promote an adjoining cafe, long since vanished – as has this kind of gorgeous lettering, tea shops in general, and the notion that putting “d” after a number is not a reference to a boy band.

Something that can be more accurately dated is the LTSR ironwork to the left of the sign. That’s the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway, by whom the station was built in the 1850s. Back then the idea of buying tea from a person on a platform would have been morally scandalous. One had it served to one, thank you very much, and you’ll mind your manners for saying so.

Pillar of wisdom*Possibly the saddest song about London ever written

128. The tower at Osterley

4 September 2013
Architecture, Numbers 126-150, Piccadilly line, Zone 4
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Toppermost of the Popper OstAh, if only this really were the top of a London Underground skyscraper, its summit boasting restaurants, swimming pools, viewing platforms and the entrance to a giant chute down which you could slide all the way to the station entrance.

It’s still utterly spectacular, despite possessing none of these things and being the width merely of a mildly stout man.

In fact, I’m not sure you can get inside it at all. I suspect it is entirely filled with concrete. But no matter, for it caps what is an extraordinary tower of beauty sitting in a location of brow-furrowing ordinariness.

Os-ter-ley, ha ha ha ha ha hThe tower’s practical job seems to be as a landmark to help people approaching from a distance. Its job as a piece of architecture is more subjective, and probably rests on your view of European design of the 1930s. That, and whether you find a massive pile of bricks and concrete appealing. Which they are, obviously.

The station was the work of Stanley Heaps, following the style developed by Charles Holden up at the other end of the Piccadilly line. It’s a gloriously imaginative, chic and daring prong of modernism. From a certain height, and in a certain era, it resembles a huge electrical jack or futuristic transmitter, the kind up which diabolical masterminds would send messages to testicle-shaped aliens, and from which monsters and maidens would dangle.

At night those panels on the side of the concrete obelisk light up, making it look even more other-worldly – yet still attractive, even alluring. It’s such a simple idea: build a great big tower then make it even higher. But it’s one that also manages to sum up the combined, intricate appeal of the Underground: its impulsive ambition, its stylish audacity, its pride in being noticed, its joy in being admired.

Not bad for a poke in the sky.

A poke in the sky

127. The mosaics at Tottenham Court Road

2 September 2013
Central line, Designs, Northern line, Numbers 126-150, Zone 1
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Colour me smittenNo less a figure than Sir Paul McCartney has links with Tottenham Court Road.

It’s not via his smashing video for the 1986 song Press, which features a bumper crop of Underground locations. Rather, it’s that the same person who designed the cover of the joyless Wings album Red Rose Speedway also designed the joyous mosaics that line this station’s platforms.

Eduardo Paolozzi is the common factor, and I know which of his efforts I prefer. I’m sorry, but a picture of an ex-Beatle with a flower in his gob just cannot compete with the likes of this:

Courting approvalThis must be the most highly-maintained slice of public art on the Underground. That’s not an especially insightful guess; you can see the wear and tear within seconds of arrival. By and large, though, the mosaics are in reassuringly fine shape. Most of them look as ravishing as they must have done on their construction between 1982 and ’84. A great deal of Tottenham Court Road station may be currently in a shocking state, but tens of thousands of tiny chunks of it are not.

And what a delight it is to discover them, having trudged down steps and along corridors that seem longer and dirtier than they really are, ending up in what always seem to be among the hottest deep-level tunnels of all.

Rogue typeface alertThere’s a bit of rogue typeface to be found as well.

Paolozzi was given 1,000 square metres to fill. Not all of this remains intact. The whirling abstract shapes and topical tessellations used to spill up from the platforms, through passageways and escalator wells and into the ticket hall. But as with other voguish trends of the early 80s, they have fallen away – literally, in some cases.

A few of the designs can look a bit like the mouth of a sugary-drink addict. Occasionally you’ll find a tile on the floor. If you’re conscientious you will hand it to a member of staff. If not, you will take it home and put it on top of your chest of drawers, next to that pebble that may or may not have once belonged to the Berlin Wall.

Some areas of the platforms seem to have escaped the current round of modernisation entirely. Welcome to a time before the Docklands Light Railway, when the only interchange at Stratford was with British Rail:

Epping for OngarOther designs draw your eye upwards and on to the ceiling, doing their best to cope with intrusions from cables, signage and a great wodge of plastic:

Courting disasterBut even cut in half or riddled like an asymmetric colander, the mosaics continue to triumph. Anywhere else they might feel garish, seem over-the-top, look fussy and appear unsightly. Down here they are like the sweetest major chord resolving out of the bleakest of cacophonies, or the world’s largest paintbox exploding on to the drabbest canvas.

Welcome to Paolozzi’s everlasting night on the tiles.

It was a very good year