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Architecture

106. The roof at Stratford

10 June 2013
Architecture, Central line, Jubilee line, Numbers 101-125, Zone 3
4 Comments

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

105. The exterior of Sudbury Town

5 June 2013
Architecture, Numbers 101-125, Piccadilly line, Zone 4
2 Comments

Enormo-roundelIf quantity of roundels isn’t your thing, how about heft?

Mounted just above the main entrance to Sudbury Town station is one of the largest, not to say thickest, roundels I have ever seen. It is an enormo-roundel.

This is wholly fitting, because Sudbury Town is an enormo-station. It’s another Charles Holden box of delights, but what a box:

Box cleverImagine having this on your doorstep. A few dozen people do. Lucky bastards.

Were plans for such a building submitted today, I suspect they would not be approved. We’ve become a population more bothered by back yards than beauty. Back in the 1930s and 40s, poverty, war and reconstruction brought people into the streets. Now it is planning permission sub-clauses.

Imaginative and exciting building could and should happen anywhere. If it’s breathtaking to boot, like Sudbury Town station, so much the better. I can understand people objecting to something if it is impractical or uninspiring. I can’t understand anyone objecting to something just because it is new.

Sud's lawThere’s a slightly restorative feel to a building like this. I’d rank it alongside tasting air after a thunderstorm or a dip in a geothermal spring. (I’ll leave you to decide which I’ve experienced most recently).

The reason could lie with the crisp freshness that still clings to Sudbury Town, like the folds in a newly-printed map, decades after it opened in 1932. Perhaps it’s the attention to detail, like the barometer inside the ticket hall. Maybe it’s to do with that most bountiful of all Holden’s architectural flourishes: natural light, which flirts its way around those always-ravishing clerestory windows:

Clerestory? Morning gloryOr it could just be that enormo-roundel, which leaves me a bit giddy, and also wishing I could have one on my living room wall.

Lifesize, naturally.

104. The platforms at Loughton

3 June 2013
Architecture, Central line, Designs, Numbers 101-125, 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…