V. New Works, New Board and New Graphics, 1930–45
It would be no exaggeration to say that the expansion of the London Underground in the 1930s helped change the face of Britain. Design played a crucial part in this, and that was down to two individuals in particular; Frank Pick (p. 62) and Charles Holden (p. 116) are rightly credited with creating a look for the transport environment that reverberated across the country and around the world.
It was clear from the outset that the Piccadilly expansion would be an even bigger job than the Morden extension (p. 116). Not only would it involve the creation from scratch of eight new stations north of Finsbury Park,1 but almost all the old District infrastructure that the Piccadilly line would inherit in north-west and south-west London needed rebuilding – much of it substantially. Given the scale of the task, Pick decided to look abroad for architectural inspiration (p. 162), taking with him Holden and Ashfield’s secretary W. P. N. Edwards. From 20 June to 7 July 1930, they visited Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, looking at new buildings and an architectural style becoming known as the ‘Amsterdam School’2. What they gleaned during their tour had a profound effect on the design of London Underground stations for the next decade and beyond (p. 213), creating a new lexicon in British architectural style and inspiring the look of many other buildings, both public and private, across Britain.
Designing around passenger flow
The first project was a complete rebuild of Sudbury Town (p. 164), which Holden then used as a prototype for subsequent stations. Taking his cue from those built for the Edgware extension (p. 129) and his last two out-of-town stations (Hounslow West and Ealing Common), with all facilities (ticket sales, offices, shops and cafés) leading off a large circulating area, Holden prepared graphs of passenger movement and designed each station around the flow of people passing through it. Arguably the first time a proper, scientifically based study had been conducted for such a purpose, it demonstrated an appreciation of what would now be called wayfinding, regarded as crucial in the planning of any public building. Once the circulating area had been established, and bearing in mind the function of the station as the hub of a multi-modal transport system connecting with buses, trams and taxis, Holden then fused what he had learnt from the European tour with local materials to design what he called his ‘brick boxes with concrete lids’ (p. 166). Using Sudbury Town as his blueprint, Holden created a ‘kit of parts’ for all the Piccadilly line stations, based upon what would nowadays be termed an MESR (modular, extensible, scalable and reconfigurable) system that can be adapted to each location.
Sudbury Town sets the standard
Taking only seven months to build, Sudbury Town opened in July 1931. The station included so many pioneering design features that it merits close attention; it was like nothing previously seen in Britain – even the signage was unique on the Underground. The front and rear elevations, for instance, had a neon name sign – a nice touch, although expensive to maintain and so removed in the 1950s.3 The use of Delf Smith’s ‘petit serif’ version of Johnston for directional signage (p. 165) was unusual, seen at only a handful of other Piccadilly line stations,4 and the station nameboards in the same typeface were unique and never repeated. The station building itself with its exposed-brick booking-hall area was so spacious and well lit that by day it was a shrine to masonry5 and by night it was equally welcoming, the internal illuminations shining through the large glass panels intersected with steel glazing bars. Two flared, square Art Deco uplighters dominated the booking hall (p. 164), similar in design to those at Piccadilly Circus6 but not repeated elsewhere. On the platforms, Bauhaus-style hoop and sphere lamps are still in evidence, while the building, first listed in 1971, is now categorized as Grade II*.
The height of Holden
The years 1931–9 were a frenetic time for building new stations. In addition to eight on the Piccadilly extension to Cockfosters (pp. 170–177), Adams, Holden & Pearson was working on no less than twenty others.7 There were so many projects that Holden could not possibly design and supervise every one (as he had done previously), so other individuals – colleagues, assistants, trainees and the Underground’s in-house architect, Stanley Heaps – became involved at different sites. This team approach had already led to some successful designs at Hounslow West and Ealing Common (both begun in 1929) and opened in 1931. At Enfield West (now Oakwood, p. 176), while Holden was at the helm for conceptualizing the ‘brick box with concrete lid’, it was Charles Holloway James who oversaw much of the project and Heaps who designed the platform canopy. James also supervised the Bounds Green site following Holden’s specifications (p. 171). Heaps was responsible for the distinctive 8m-high ‘mushroom’ shelters or ‘pylons’, comprising a round canopy over circular seating, with standard lamps and the bullseye sign (p. 198).8 After outstanding praise for Sudbury Town, neighbouring Sudbury Hill was given the Holden treatment (p. 166), featuring a well-lit stairway with stepped glazed enclosures down to the covered shelters at platform level (opened 1931). Northfields, Alperton and Acton Town followed during 1932 in Holden’s now recognizable style (p. 166).
Three more central London rebuilds were also in hand during the early 1930s, all based upon Holden designs and with Heaps assisting: Knightsbridge ticket hall and platforms (opened 18 February 1934), Hammersmith (Queen Charlotte Street entrance – ready by June 1932) and Highgate (renamed Archway in 1939, p. 184). Both the latter featured relatively narrow frontages which were almost entirely in glass with Holden’s signature steel glazing bars; sadly both have since been demolished.
By contrast for the rebuild of the old Leslie Green station at Gillespie Road (renamed Arsenal in October 1931), no glass was used at all, the concrete facade being decorated instead with a large mosaic Underground bullseye (p. 184). More radical designs like the drum-shaped building at Arnos Grove (p. 172) and Chiswick Park, which opened in April 1932 (p. 167),9 were inspired by the Stockholm Public Library (p. 162) and Krumme Lanke U-Bahn station in Berlin (p. 162), which Pick and Holden had seen on their tour. This shape was also used for Warren Street for a rebuild needed to accommodate the escalators (1933) – an Adams, Holden & Pearson design executed by Heaps.
While Holden’s remaining Piccadilly line stations were largely cubic (or octagonal in the case of Bounds Green), Southgate – on the second stage of the Piccadilly extension to Cockfosters – took the circular concept into the next dimension (p. 174). One of Britain’s quintessential Art Deco buildings (constructed in the ‘Streamline Moderne’ style10), it sums up the forward-looking spirit of the age. At Cockfosters itself, although the station entrance was less remarkable, the train shed is notable for its cavernous size and textured concrete (p. 177),11 its first outing in Britain. Public enthusiasm and rave reviews from the trade press encouraged Pick and Holden into performing yet more daring feats but not before a monumental shift in the organization of transport in London had taken place, one that would also have a profound effect on station design, as will be shown (p. 154).
‘Tidying up the lines’
Meanwhile, radical ideas were surfacing elsewhere on the Underground, not just in the architecture and signage, but in the cartographic representation of the system. Each Underground line had for many years been represented inside the cars by a line diagram or ‘strip map’.12 Railways were experimenting with schematics in other parts of the world,13 while in Britain the cartographic simplification of mainline and commuter networks owes much to pioneering draughtsman George Dow.14 The problem for the Underground was that the official pocket maps of F. H. Stingemore (p. 143), while adequate for the 1920s, looked somewhat dated alongside the new streamlined trains and stations. Furthermore, any new extensions to the system could not be accommodated without the map looking cramped. It was this that inspired Underground employee Henry (‘Harry’) Beck to think about how to simplify the map and create a more legible diagram of the network.
Working as a junior draughtsman in the engineers office, although not a designer per se, Beck came up with a sketch (p. 168) that was to change both his life and the way Londoners viewed their city, not to mention the mapping of transit systems around the world. In his initial drawing Beck presented the Central London Line (as the CLR had then become known) as a straight horizontal baseline, other Underground lines being shown vertically, horizontally or at an angle of 45 degrees. He explained that he imagined he ‘was using a convex lens or mirror so as to present the central area on a larger scale’ (Garland, Bibliography); suburban stations, by contrast, were set much closer together, evenly spaced along the clean straight lines out of the centre, so that the entire network would fit onto a pocket map-sized piece of card. Beck drew the lines only loosely in the correct geographical location, hence distorting the geography of the capital; but that was his point. The opening out of central London allowed all the interchanges to show up more clearly so that the station names did not need to be so squeezed in. Beck spent many hours making a ‘presentation visual’ (p. 168) from his initial sketch and after encouragement from colleagues (including Stingemore, according to Garland), he submitted it to the publicity office in 1931. To Beck’s astonishment and dismay, the idea was rejected.
Luckily for London, Beck was persistent and resubmitted the idea a year later. He was sent for after a meeting of the publicity office and told by a Mr Patmore: ‘You’d better sit down: I’m going to give you a shock. We’re going to print it.’ Over the next few months Beck’s idea was refined,15 and the first card folder was issued in January 1933 (p. 169). A quad-royal poster version was made in March of that year. Though the diagram has been fiddled with and endlessly tweaked – for almost thirty years by Beck himself, and by many hands since – the 1930s design is still used in essence to this day. Given the millions produced every year, it is arguably the most recognized cartographic item in the western world. In 2001 the tag ‘This diagram is an evolution of the original design conceived in 1931 by Harry Beck’ was added to the map face. A fine tribute for an outstanding design.
A final far-flung fling for the Met
The Met had long planned its swansong – a 6km run towards Stanmore (p. 180).16 Following the unparalleled success of ‘Metro-land’, Robert Hope Selbie (right up until his death in 1930) had been on the lookout for other undeveloped areas adjacent to his lines to expand into. In fairness, there were not that many options as urban growth was now occurring at a breakneck speed around all the edges of London (peaking in 1934), but aside from some industry at Kingsbury17, this sliver of Middlesex was relatively undeveloped. Despite the popularity of the Underground’s emerging modernist style, the Met stuck with Charles W. Clark as the main designer of the stations on this line.18 Clark had been having a little flirt with the modern look at his rebuild of Northwick Park in 1931 (p. 180) and at Northwood Hills (1933). Consequently he had what can best be described as a ‘tinker’ at Canons Park Edgware (later just Canons Park, p. 180). Needless to say, despite these nods to modernization, his services were not called upon again.
The Board is born
On 1 July 1933, a new body came into being which would have unprecedented powers over the capital and the Home Counties. The London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB or ‘The Board’) effectively nationalized the Underground group and the Met, with Lord Ashfield as chairman and Frank Pick as his deputy.19 The Board, which operated under the overarching name ‘London Transport’ (LT), was allowed a complete monopoly within a radius of approximately 50km from Charing Cross. With a budget of £120 million (£6.5 billion at today’s prices), it was able at last to strategically design and plan services for this vast and diverse area. Following a quick updating of the logos (p. 186) and some rebranding of services, various projects left over from before the Board was formed were completed, including the new ‘jewels in the crown’, Boston Manor (designed by Holden) and Osterley (a Holden/Heaps collaboration), which both opened during 1933–4 (pp. 182–3). Three others (Holden’s reconstructed entrances for Leicester Square and Knightsbridge and the complete rebuild of South Harrow, p. 185) also opened during 1935 and were among the first stations to sport the new London Transport branding on the bullseye signs.20 The last stations planned before the Board came into being, but not opened until 1936, were the colossal Park Royal (designed and built by a new entrant: Welch & Lander, p. 185) and South Ealing, where waiting rooms with rounded ends in the Streamline Moderne style21 would influence the design of platform buildings for years to come (e.g. Dollis Hill, p. 198). The final pre-Board design was the exhibition entrance rebuild on Warwick Road for Earl’s Court. This was a glazed rotunda by Heaps not completed until 1937.22
The New Works Programme, 1935–40
Meanwhile, Pick had already embarked on preparation for a major scheme of expansion and rejuvenation. Published by the Board on 5 June 1935, the ‘New Works Programme’23 (NWP) provided major investment – £40 million (£2.25 billion today) – for a host of improvements on the Underground,24 including extensions and station rebuilds which Adams, Holden & Pearson would be involved in along with new architects and designers. One of the first of these projects to come to fruition was the reconstruction of a former smallish station at Rayners Lane (p. 193) – an important junction between the Met and the Piccadilly and close to an area of rapidly increasing population. The final design was made by Reginald H. Uren, an architect at Adams, Holden & Pearson. Fully opened on 8 August 1938, it seemed to combine all the Holden features: the ‘brick box with concrete lid’ towered over the hill it was set upon while the elegant Streamline Moderne curved windows beneath (and at platform level) felt fitting for the age – a perfect companion for the nearby Grosvenor Cinema.25
Inheriting buildings from other railways
One of the easiest and least expensive methods of expanding the Underground was to simply route trains over existing suburban or commuter lines. ‘Running rights’ is a practice dating back to the earliest days of railway history and it was as much a part of the NWP as it was during the heady days of the District routing trains to Windsor (p. 17)! But the lines first needed to be electrified. Along with other mainline companies,26 the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) provided electrified tracks to Upminster in 1932 (the Underground having used the LMS line to Barking for many years) and rebuilt stations between 1932 and 1935. The company designed a number of tasteful brick buildings in the Art Deco style,27 which fitted in with the Board’s buildings of the same era even if it took many years for LT signage to appear on the platforms.28
The Carr–Edwards report, 1938
Now that the Board was established and major improvements were planned for all services, a co-ordinated approach to signage was urgently needed. W. P. N. Edwards and the assistant publicity officer, Henry Carr, had been working with publicity boss Christian Barman on ‘a report upon the standards which should, in our opinion, be adopted governing the location and types of direction signs, notices and maps upon the railways’.29 The Carr–Edwards report (Bibliography), as it subsequently became known (including the accompanying drawings), was arguably the first attempt to compile a manual of graphic standards – certainly in any transit organization (p. 192) – and was rigidly adhered to for almost every sign erected as part of the NWP.
The report recognized with some prescience that ‘the Board’s stations are the railway’s shop windows’, recommending the installation outside every station of Underground bullseyes, the name of the station (including the word ‘station’), the name of the line(s) and a system map. Inside the station the report recommended ‘Use of the bullseye symbol on all signs and notices’. This suggestion was somewhat rigorously applied, leading, it could be said, to slight over-exposure of the device (such as in the passageways at refurbished Earl’s Court).30 The report also acknowledged, quite rightly, that signage was crucial at any ‘bifurcation point’ (such as the circulating area at the bottom of an escalator) where ‘a complete list of the stations on the line concerned’ should be displayed, ‘with a line diagram incorporated into it and interchange stations shown in the colour of the line with which interchange is effected’. It did also point out with a vague hint of regret that ‘Complete standardization of signs is unfortunately impossible without a standard design of station’!31 Given the popularity of Beck’s recently introduced diagram, there was an interesting recommendation running counter to this: ‘the map on the outside of stations should be in geographical form. Passengers requiring to make use of maps outside stations are normally strangers, who may not even know the name of the station they require, but merely have a rough idea of the neighbourhood which they wish to visit.’ This proposal was not carried out with much rigour in London, perhaps because the Board had invested so much in Beck’s diagram.32
The signage erected following implementation of the thoughtful and well-reasoned recommendations of this report was soon to be seen all over London. Indeed, the corporate branding of today stands firmly on the shoulders of this outstanding contribution to wayfinding and graphic design.
Converting the Met to LU design standards
Now that the fiercely independent Met had been brought into the LT family, the important task of assimilating it into the corporate brand was begun in earnest. From 1933 onwards, Met locos and carriages were painted with the LT wordmark in Johnston Sans. A planned station at Queensbury on the Stanmore branch was opened in 1934 (p. 198), but constructed in the modern Underground style. Following a study by Pick of the Met, he concluded that the majority of it should be electrified.33 Inevitably some services were rationalized,34 and stations between Finchley Road and Baker Street were closed when the Bakerloo took over the Stanmore branch in 1939 (p. 198) so the Met could operate as an express between Wembley Park and Finchley Road. The red diamond signs began to be replaced by Underground bullseyes with Johnston Sans nameplates. In-car strip maps sported the typeface too, although the Met logo with its enlarged M and N briefly survived the conversion to the new signs in Johnston lettering.35 Later on, the need to repair war damage would accelerate the replacement of old Met company signs and logos.36
‘Friezing’ for freer flow
One problem that designers had been trying to get to grips with was how to make the station name sufficiently visible on crowded platforms where signs were frequently obscured by people waiting for the next train. Placing name signs at alternating heights (since Kilburn Park in 1915, p. 87 and along the Morden extension, p. 135) had helped, but in the streamlined 1930s was regarded as untidy. A concept that may have been inspired by signage on underground systems in other parts of the world 37 was therefore trialled during 1937 at several busy West End deep-level Tube stations. This consisted of a paper frieze positioned at a height of 2m along the platform wall, with the name of the station repeated at intervals (in Johnston Sans, of course, p. 190). The idea was simple yet so effective that enamelled signs were soon ordered and used universally on platforms underground. Ceramic friezes were introduced on the new Bakerloo stations two years later (p. 196) and also on some Northern and Central line stations, but the practice was short-lived and enamel became the norm.
Pick takes umbrage about Uxbridge
As part of the renovations on the former Met, the station at Uxbridge needed re-siting closer to the centre of the town, but as Charles Holden was completely taken up with his new project for the University of London,38 Adams, Holden & Pearson subcontracted some of the work to a new architect, Leonard Holcombe Bucknell. Perturbed by the exclusion of Holden and the expense of Bucknell’s designs, Pick insisted that Holden should be involved or his firm would receive no further commissions. After this was agreed, the company was asked to prepare some designs for the proposed extension from Edgware to Aldenham.39 Holden’s design for the train shed at Uxbridge was effectively a carbon copy of the concrete structure at Cockfosters, but the rest of the building was unique and much grander, incorporating shops and offices. Opening on 4 December 1938, the final design consisted of a two-storey brick facade with sculpted ‘wheel’ motifs above the curved entrance (p. 193) and sporting a stained-glass mural by Ervin Bossányi. In the forecourt was a new type of totem sign40 which would be adopted at other stations: this was a square concrete pillar with a double-sided, illuminated Underground bullseye and three internally lit blue strips showing the station and line names (p. 193).
Aiming for the Heights and naming the Northern
Despite the deteriorating international situation, the NWP was optimistically pushed forward. Rebuilding the small halt at Ruislip Manor to a Holden design had begun in 1936 and was completed in 1938; this featured a unique ticket-hall clock with numerals replaced by orange circles fired into the cream-coloured tiles (p. 191). A similar scheme to rebuild the Eastcote halt, also completed in 1938, resulted in a wonderfully well-balanced design – another Holden ‘brick box with concrete lid’, incorporating on this occasion two exquisitely proportioned shop fronts complete with Streamline Moderne curved windows and mast-mounted bullseyes on each retail unit. But it was the design of three major projects that dominated the period: the Bakerloo was to have new tunnels north of Baker Street and take over the Stanmore branch (p. 198); the Central was being extended outwards with new tunnels in the east and electrification of suburban steam lines both east and west (p. 199); and the Northern line was to be extended north of Highgate (now Archway) via a tunnel and with further conversions from steam (p. 194).
Proposals were so far advanced before the war that building work was already well under way and new trains (the so-called ‘1938 Stock’, p. 189), signage (p. 189) and even destination roller blinds had been ordered. In anticipation of the complex arrangements for the full Northern Heights plan (so named because the areas to be served, such as Alexandra Palace, were on high ground), the poorly named ‘Morden–Edgware’ line, as it had by then become, was rechristened the ‘Northern’.41 Two of the line’s largest new stations were to be at East Finchley and Highgate. Bucknell worked with Adams, Holden & Pearson on the East Finchley station, which opened on 3 July 1939 (p. 194). The building is now listed and with its curved, two-storey glazed stairwells and beautiful bronze sculpture by Eric Aumonier, its easy to see why.42 Highgate, by contrast, never achieved its planned potential: re-modelled on the site of the original 1860s station, it was designed to have two levels, but the majority of the planned station was not built on account of the Alexandra Palace branch never being electrified.43
The appliance of faience
To relieve congestion and speed up services, an extension of the Bakerloo was proposed north of Baker Street in new tunnels rising to the surface at Finchley Road and taking over the Met stations to Wembley Park and the newish branch to Stanmore. The tunnelled section, begun in 1936, included two new stations, St John’s Wood and Swiss Cottage (p. 196),44 which opened on 20 November 1939. Their tile-lined platforms were designed by Harold Stabler and set the tone for more in this style.45 As Clark had only recently substantially rebuilt Swiss Cottage, all that was required were escalators between the new platforms and the older ticket hall. No substantial surface re-modelling was needed but the ticket hall was matched with the cream coloured tiling style (though the station was later built over, leaving only stairway entrances). These Stabler platforms, recently restored to their 1939 glory, epitomize the streamlined neatness of the age.
At St John’s Wood, comprising the only wholly new surface building serving the Bakerloo tunnel, a fine rotunda was constructed in the Holden style by in-house architect Stanley Heaps. Direction signs at the top and bottom of the escalators were of the illuminated bronze bullseye shape on fluted, squat brass columns (p. 192). Other stations along the new Bakerloo branch were tarted up and improved; Kilburn, for example, was given a re-modelled side entrance (1939) and curved windows in the Streamline Moderne style were installed in waiting rooms there and at West Hampstead and Dollis Hill (p. 198).
Trains with flares
The streamlined look of the 1930s not only encompassed stations and signage; funky new rolling stock was also designed during this period. The first to appear was in January 1933, in the form of an experimental high-speed Tube train. Consisting of a ‘Standard Stock’46 car affixed to a ‘streamlined’ cab with windows surrounding the driver, permitting a much wider field of vision, this was the brainchild of deputy-chief mechanical engineer William S. Graff-Baker. Though it ran at night for six months on the western end of the Piccadilly line, it was never in active passenger service, but it did lead to the production of eighteen high-speed trains. Instead of being tapered in at the front, they each had a flared prow (front end) and sported an Art Deco ‘feather’ ventilation grille on the domed roof (p. 188). This design caused some controversy between the LPTB and officials at the Ministry of Transport, who did not see the point of the flared edge, and indeed Pick himself was not entirely convinced by the look. When they were brought into service (April 1937), people took to them at once, not least because the interiors were so plush, with comfortable, coach-style seats, sprung ball-ended strap-hangers and even a crude form of air-conditioning! Though the streamlined cabs were replaced, the trains proved the inspiration for the celebrated ‘1938 Stock’, which became the archetypal design of Tube train (p. 189), remaining in service for fifty years.47 The same shape also inspired other train design such as the larger, sub-surface ‘O Stock’ of 1937 with a flared side (p. 188), which stayed on the system until 1981.
War halts works but hones publicity
After the Bakerloo, the Northern was extended to High Barnet in 1940 with East Finchley as a hub, though apart from Mill Hill East (1941), work on the rest of the Northern was halted. On the Central line some work was accomplished, including a 4km section of tunnel between Gants Hill and Wanstead – used as a deep-level factory by Plessey during the war – and the rebuilding of stations at Loughton and West Acton (both 1940, p. 199). But the shortage of materials and workers caused by the conflict inevitably put the brakes on construction elsewhere until after 1945. The war had one benefit however: it helped hone the skills of the publicity office. Aside from numerous warning and information signs (p. 201), it issued a large number of posters – effectively propaganda for boosting morale – during the six years of hostilities (p. 200), including outstanding pieces by such respected artists as Edward McKnight Kauffer. And it learnt valuable lessons in the process that would greatly assist in the mammoth task of rehabilitation and rebuilding following the outbreak of peace in 1945.
Burton’s event posters, 1929–34
The 1930s was a golden age for commercial artists and poster designers. The Underground commissioned over a thousand works during this decade, giving exposure to some of the world’s most influential designers as well as many newcomers. Just as Charles Sharland dominated the early twentieth century, so the work of several other artists called ‘Charles’ (Atkinson, Baker, Brown, Cundall, Mozely, Paine, Pears, Shepherd and Frederick Charles Herrick) played an important role in the 1930s and 40s. Outstanding among them is Charles Burton, who between 1929 and 1934 created a series of exquisite event posters (all images below) for setting above the windows inside carriages. His simple cartoon-style images seem to epitomize the Streamline Moderne age, while lettering is a hand-drawn approximation of a decorated sans-serif as Burton chose not to use Johnston Sans – a concession that only a handful of other artists (including Edward McKnight Kauffer, posters shown here, Austin Cooper, Margaret Calkin James, and Clifford and Rosemary Ellis) were permitted.
McKnight Kauffer posters, 1930–38
Cited as one of the twentieth century’s most influential artists, Edward McKnight Kauffer (p. 159) produced over 100 posters for the Underground (including those pictured, from 1930 to 1938), ranging in style from Cubist to Surrealist. His first commissions in 1915 were mainly idyllic country scenes but during the 1920s his posters show an increasing degree of abstraction, culminating in the 1930s in some of the most witty and imaginative yet seen on the station walls of the capital.
European influences on the London Underground, 1930
Pick and Holden’s visit to the Continent (1930, p. 150) took them on a tour of some of Europe’s most striking new public buildings, which had a big impact on their thinking for the Piccadilly extension. Square towers like W. M. Dudok’s 1928 Hilversum Raadhuis (City Hall, 1) and the Kantoorgebouw de Telegraaf in Amsterdam (p. 182), designed by J. F. Staal and G. J. Langhout in 1930, inspired Holden’s design for Osterley (p. 183). Rotundas like the Stockholm Public Library (1928, 2), by Erik Gunnar Asplund, and the Berlin U-Bahn station at Krumme Lanke (1929, 3) by Alfred Grenander (both possibly inspired by the 1784 Rotonde de la Villette in Paris) influenced Holden’s plans for Arnos Grove (p. 172) and Chiswick Park (p. 167).
The glass curtain wall of Piet Kramer’s De Bijenkorf department store in The Hague (1930) and the trademark exposed brick and curved edges of the Amsterdam School (exemplified by Michel de Klerk’s Het Schip, or ‘The Ship’, in Amsterdam, 4 and E. Mendelson’s textile factory ‘Krasnoye Znamya’, built in St. Petersburg from 1925) were replicated on stations like Sudbury Town (p. 164) and Holden’s other ‘brick boxes with concrete lids’.
On his return from the tour of Europe, Holden began work on designs for the stations of the Piccadilly line extension. The influence of the various features he and Pick had observed – the towers, rotundas and brickwork – is evident in his drawings: Arnos Grove (1), Chiswick Park (2).
Sudbury Town sets the standard, 1931
Although not built to the original design for the station, Sudbury Town was the first reconstructed in the new style to open (19 July 1931). What emerged shook the British architectural establishment: taking just six months to build, the station contained almost all the elements that would find their way into most of Holden’s subsequent designs, ideas that would resonate throughout the land, replicated in numerous public buildings, from hospitals to schools, benefit offices to power stations. This station was the original Holden ‘brick box with a concrete lid’. So simple, yet so effective, with its double-height ticket hall and brick-and-glass curtain wall (1), rounded platform buildings alongside Bauhaus-style ‘hoop and sphere’ lamps, concrete fencing, and unique square uplighters (2). Dubbed ‘rationalist’, it is a style whose descendants (and antecedents in the Amsterdam School, p. 150) spread throughout Britain and mainland Europe.
Peculiar to the Piccadilly: petit serifs, 1931
Though the elegantly formed Delf Smith ‘petit serif’ version of Johnston Sans (1) was originally intended for use at 55 Broadway (p. 117), Holden had included the lettering in a few select places at the Piccadilly Circus rebuild (2). At Sudbury Town, all of the signage was in this style (3, 4, 5, 6, 7). There is evidence that it was also used elsewhere (pp. 170, 176), though not universally, Pick possibly limiting exposure for fear that it might creep into other parts of the system. Hence the only places where it can still be seen in situ today are at Sudbury Town.
Holden’s ‘brick boxes with concrete lids’, 1930–32
As the Sudbury Town model was being refined and developed, so the plans Holden’s company had prepared for the other stations began to come to fruition. Work began in late 1930 on Northfields (opened 18 December 1932, 1 and 2).
Set in the middle of flat-roofed, single-storey buildings occupying a relatively wide footprint, the double-height ticket hall appears set back. With glazing on all four sides of the tower, daylight floods the interior (6), while a stained-glass bullseye in the Bond Street style is centrally mounted on the front elevation.
The ticket hall features larger versions of the fluted brass uplighters (6). Platform furniture includes a three-faced concrete mount for the station-name bullseye, flanked on either side by a poster holder (2). The ‘brick box with concrete lid’ was repeated at Sudbury Hill (4), with a covered stairway, inset with clerestory windows, down to each platform (3).
At Acton Town the street frontage was on the overbridge, curving round to a side road at a slightly lower level included a rounded, single-storey corner unit used as a shop. At Alperton the platforms are on an embankment, which the generic design was altered to fit. Chiswick Park (opened April 1932, 5) was a drum-shaped sister of Arnos Grove (p. 172), but with a squat tower to one side.
A sketch in time, 1931
The contribution of a single individual to something that changes the course of history is usually pretty minimal, just one of many, but occasionally someone comes up with a concept so remarkable that it alters things completely. A few lines scribbled in a cheap exercise book in 1931 (1) certainly come into this category.
Though now generally accepted that schematic representations of rail services had been circulating previously, what Underground engineer Henry Beck (p. 153) sketched in 1931 represents one of the most radical leaps in cartography since the invention of triangulation. While his idea for a simplified map of the Tube network was based upon what had gone before (in-car strip maps, for instance, and George Dow’s LNER schematics, p. 152), his expansion of the central area, equalization of station spacing and, crucially, use of only horizontal, vertical and 45-degree diagonal lines – plus his tenacity in resubmitting his idea after the rejection of his visual (2) – demonstrates the confidence Beck had in this breathtakingly simple yet wholly practical concept.
Forty-five degrees of separation, 1933
Five hundred trial copies of Beck’s diagram were issued in 1932, followed by a print-run of 700,000 for release in January 1933 as a card pocket map (3). The map face (158mm high × 226mm wide) was folded over twice to create a ‘cover’ 75mm wide on which the following was printed: ‘A new design for an old map. We should welcome your comments.’ A quad-royal poster was produced in March the same year and issued in July. The clarity and innovation of the design went down so well that, for generations of travellers, its quirky distortion of London’s geography has supplanted the real shape of the capital. Millions have been produced annually since then, leading to this magnificent work becoming one of the most iconic pieces of British graphic design. Its ingenious solutions have been adopted by the overwhelming majority of metro/subway system maps the world over. Though the design has been tweaked and tinkered with, new lines and extensions have been added and a plethora of extra details included (too many, in the opinion of Maxwell J. Roberts – 2005, Bibliography – and others), the card folder in use today is virtually identical in size and in the overall look.
First out from Finsbury Park, 1932
The inaugural section of the Piccadilly’s extension north from Finsbury Park opened on 19 September 1932. The first station reached, Manor House, was a bit unusual at the surface as it had only one fairly nondescript entrance (1) and several railed stairwell entrances. It was nonetheless a major intersection for trains, trams and buses and so a unique octagonal totem column (3) was installed with three-fingered flags on four sides pointing to the further-flung destinations of north London. It also featured a unique interlaced U and D (rolled on to its side) atop the finial. The circulating area/ticket office, by artist Herbert Felton, resembled that of Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square with its suspended ceiling, passimeter and circular display board showing ticket prices (2). The words ‘fares’ and ‘litter’ on this column and some of the direction signage here (4) were in the Delf Smith petit serif.
Turnpike and two Greens, 1932
The next station, Turnpike Lane (1), was another Holden-designed ‘brick box with a concrete lid’ with characteristic window panelling and a ventilation tower. Due to its corner location, Wood Green (2) had a variation on the theme with a curving frontage and vent towers either side. At the next station, Bounds Green (3), for which the lead designer was Charles Holloway James (p. 150), the brick box became octagonal with glazed ‘sides’ and a brick frontage. The ticket halls at all three, like those on the west side at Sudbury and Northfields (pp. 164–6), benefited from being double height with inset windows, making them light and airy. Here and on the escalators and in the circulating areas below were the signature Piccadilly line Art Deco bronze uplighters (4).
Around Arnos Grove, 1932
Arnos Grove was the first cylindrical ticket hall to be erected in Britain. Inspired by Stockholm Public Library (p. 162), Holden drew up (with his assistant Charles Hutton) a design for what was to become one of the most quintessential Underground stations ever built (front in 1933, 1). Although Chiswick Park (p. 167) was under construction at the same time, Arnos Grove opened first as the temporary terminus of the Piccadilly extension. The flat concrete roof of the drum is supported by a sixteen-sided central column with a circular passimeter at the base (2). Its shape has inspired many other stations, such as the 1936 rebuild of Berlin’s Olympia-Stadion by Alfred Grenander, Park Royal (1936), Hanger Lane (1949, p. 216) and, in modern times, Canada Water (1999, p. 269) and Walthamstow (2005, p. 274). Described as ‘an architectural gem of unusual purity’ by the Observer, Arnos Grove was listed in 1971 and is now a Grade II* building, sensitively restored in 1990 and again in 2005. Station furniture included double-sided wooden seats holding the bullseye.
Stations as destinations, 1932
Pick’s publicity office lost no time in promoting the new stations as destinations in their own right. These beautiful, streamlined buildings represented some of the sharpest architecture in Britain at the time, on a par with the finest modernist buildings of the era. In the words of Architect and Building News (10 November 1933), they ‘revolutionised our idea of suburban stations’. Posters advertising them varied in their degree of sophistication, from (crude) new-build photos (3) to more imaginative designs like Cecil Walter Bacon’s beautiful paper roll (2) or McKnight Kauffer’s giant hand poised over a button that would switch on the new line (1).
Southgate spaceship spawns sinister sci-fi stars, 1933
What Holden envisaged on paper (1931) for Southgate, the first station after Arnos Grove on the extension to Cockfosters, was extraordinary. Constructed as a bus/train interchange from the outset, Southgate was a spectacular circular celebration, the most revolutionary station yet. Possibly taking his cue from the Berlin U-Bahn station at Krumme Lanke (p. 162), Holden took the island setting of the ticket hall to its logical conclusion, constructing an edifice so gracefully balanced and geometrically perfect that in many ways it is still unequalled. The design is so futuristic that at night (1) the building resembles a kind of spaceship; indeed, its lighting beacon (2), based on a Tesla coil, is said to have inspired Terry Nation, a screenwriter for the Doctor Who TV series, when designing the top half of the Daleks. The huge roof is supported by the retaining walls and a single central column with the ticket office beneath. Interior decor followed that of the other Piccadilly stations, with squat uplighters on the escalators and full-height ones at the foot of the shaft. A shopping arcade wraps around the ticket hall, its curved units echoing the main building. One of the finest surviving examples of Art Deco/Streamline Moderne style, the station is now Grade II* listed.
Mushrooming Oakwood, 1933
Designed by Charles Holloway James (p. 150) under Holden’s supervision, Enfield West (now Oakwood) had a very large ticket hall with glazed panels in the curtain wall – the longest ‘brick box with concrete lid’ built so far, its ceiling supported by concrete beams (1). Devised as an interchange, like the other two on this extension (Southgate and Cockfosters, p. 174 and 1), the long frontage facing the forecourt doubled as a bus shelter. Heaps was called in to design the concrete platform canopies (here and at Cockfosters), which featured built-in seating between piers (3) and station-name panels flanked on either side by poster frames set under the distinctive Bauhaus-style circular lamps. Apart from the modern style of trains, posters and electrical fittings, the platforms are little changed since the 1930s. Outside, a stylish ‘mushroom shelter’ still stands (2), although the long enamel plate for the station car park (4) in the Delf Smith lettering has long since disappeared. The shelters were practical touches with their steel halo of lights at the summit of a tapered concrete pole, first used here and at Southgate and Turnpike Lane but quickly copied by 1935 for Queensbury (p. 198 and elsewhere), some with information poster frames; these days they seem more decorative than functional.
Cockfosters of the north, 1933
The opening of the last station on the mammoth northerly extension of the Piccadilly line was designed to coincide with the inauguration of the new authority, the LPTB, on 1 July 1933 (p. 154). Though perhaps less aesthetically pleasing than some of the stations to the south of it, Cockfosters was nonetheless a major feat of structural engineering with its vast concrete train shed (1) – necessary for a terminal. And while the surface entrance buildings seem a little understated, they were originally designed with bigger things in mind: flats, cinemas and offices were to top the station entrance with a second structure mirroring the first on the other side of the road. As these were never constructed and the building has been faithfully restored, the station retains the feel of its opening day – even the unusual black background fascia still remains (2). The passimeter has also been kept, though it is not used for its original purpose. Hollowed-out bullseyes (5), restored signage (3) and seating between concrete piers (4) all add to this air of authenticity.
Promoting Piccadilly-land, 1932
For the opening of the second stage of extensions (to Enfield West and South Harrow) posters were once again out in force to promote the new sections. Most sensibly included maps (1 and 3) and there was a focus on the latest ‘express trains’ (4) which skipped certain quieter stations. One (2) featured old-fashioned solid red circles with oversized blue station-name bars – not particularly in keeping with the house style but eye-catching nonetheless. McKnight Kauffer was again called upon for a few more posters, one featuring a globe (4), possibly foreshadowing the top of the Southgate finial (p. 175).
Passenger information, 1932
With the backdrop of Beck’s clear diagram (p. 169) and the opening of the new Piccadilly extensions, the publicity office began experimenting with new ways to inform passengers of the route. The humble in-car strip map utilized since 1908 (an odd example from 1932 included neighbouring street names, 4) was enlarged and added to all the Piccadilly stations as a long frieze on station exteriors and above the advertising posters on the trackside wall of platforms (e.g. Bounds Green, 1, and Piccadilly Circus, 2). These were put up in 1932 and tried at Charing Cross and other stations at around the same time. The experiment was evidently not deemed a success and the traditional enamel plates listing all the stations served from that platform were made and expanded upon (e.g. at Waterloo, 5). These were backed up by extra signs on white enamel above the entrances to some platforms which gave the destination and a summary of key stations, designed to be taken in at a glance by passengers hurrying past. The bifurcation panels retained their crucial direction-giving role. Illuminated direction signs like this ‘WAY OUT’ one at Knightsbridge (3) typified the 1930s style of combining bullseyes with arrows and these devices were not standardized until 1938 (p. 192).
Clark’s last rural outposts, 1931–4
While other parts of Middlesex were gaining new Underground stations at a rate of knots, another small section of the county (now part of Greater London) was being linked to the network, though by the Met this time. The short 6km route from Wembley Park to Stanmore (3) opened on 10 December 1932, with Clark-style, rural-looking stations at Kingsbury (2) and Stanmore. At Canons Park (1) a slight concession to modernism was permitted by Clark. Queensbury, which was to open later, was left to the LPTB to complete, which it did in a more Holden-esque fashion (in 1934). Clark’s last stations for the Met, at Northwick Park (1931, 4) and Northwood Hills (1933), both showed he was grasping for a more contemporary style – the lettering was especially advanced for the Met – but even these fell short of the LPTB’s requirements and Clark was not taken on by the Board. Meanwhile, internal signage on the Stanmore branch reflected the company’s standard serifed typeface (p. 139).
Mixed Met messages, 1931–5
As the Met was inexorably absorbed into the LPTB during 1933 and rebranding started to make it look like part of the Underground, Johnston Sans was the inevitable choice for signage and publicity. The very last Clark stations had already been edging away from their traditional serifed signage and Canons Park (1) and Northwick Park (4) were both given signs in 1931–4 that looked suspiciously sans-serif. Some minor concessions to the old red diamond logo were permitted (e.g. a Johnston Sans one at Praed Street, dated 1935, 2) and some train livery continued to sport the words METROPOLITAN LINE for some years. The first of the red diamonds were removed from as early as 1934 (e.g. Uxbridge and Westbourne Park the following year), however, to be replaced with LU bullseyes. At least one ‘hybrid’ Met poster displaying their red diamond was used to promote the Arnos Grove extension of the Piccadilly line (1932, 3) – oddly using Gill Sans – but by 1934 in-car panels had migrated to Johnston Sans (2).
Boston manners, 1934
While the northerly Piccadilly needed new tunnels and stations, the takeover of the western District stations required the reconstruction of a number of dreary rural buildings dating to the 1880s. Although the Piccadilly began running to Hounslow in 1933 and both Northfields and Hounslow Central had been opened on time, Boston Manor and Osterley were not. The former, a dishevelled mess architecturally (p. 94), needed a complete rebuild due to a depot siting. What Holden designed (opened 25 March 1934, 2) was another jewel in the LT crown. The glass-and-steel casement (reminiscent of Bernard George’s 1933 Barkers Department Store on Kensington High Street) is said to be based on the De Volharding Building in The Hague (designed in 1928 by Jan W. E. Buys and seen by Pick and Holden on their European tour, 1).
Despite the Grade II listed status of Boston Manor, it has been marred by unsightly steel barriers erected for ‘Health and Safety’ reasons. A poor show for a London landmark, although they are hidden by night. At Osterley (4) the 1880s station was deemed badly sited so it was relocated further along the Great West Road. Designed by Heaps working with Holden, it is perhaps his finest contribution to the network. At 21.3m, it had the tallest tower on the system, topped by a unique concrete lighting spire, possibly inspired by Amsterdam’s Kantoorgebouw de Telegraaf building (3). Osterley is also a Grade II listed building, serving as a beacon for drivers entering London’s western outskirts.
New stations for old, 1932–4
The renovation of older, more centrally located stations became necessary in the 1930s. One of the first to be upgraded (in 1930) was Highgate (renamed Archway a few years later). After several more radical plans were considered, Holden’s huge glazed wall (1) was chosen for the frontage and when opened (3 April 1932) it became the first station outside the Piccadilly line to gain the fluted brass uplighters for the escalator shafts.
A very similar glazed frontage was installed for the rebuild at Hammersmith, where the open-air platforms were supplied with cantilevered concrete roofing and distinctive seats with station-name bullseyes incorporated (3). Due to its high passenger numbers, Knightsbridge was given a spacious new sub-surface ticket hall, which opened on 18 February 1934. In addition to a sub-surface arcade of retail units, platforms were also retiled in a new ‘biscuit cream’ colour and featured enamels with bullseyes that had four-flighted arrows on the blue bar (p. 179). At Gillespie Road (2) Holden sketched an idea to replace the old Leslie Green entrance. This was enlarged and the station name changed to Arsenal (22 February 1934). In contrast to previous designs, the frontage was a huge wall of rendered concrete featuring a giant mosaic logo.
Changes in the round, 1933–6
The success of circular ticket halls had highlighted the need for improvements elsewhere, the most pressing being the installation of escalators. At Warren Street (opened in 1933) this process required the station (originally designed by Green) to be moved; the resulting drum-like ticket hall was made to support further storeys (duly constructed in 1939). Exhibition Road entrance at Earl’s Court was given a circular ticket hall in 1935; a novel feature was the illuminated ‘train describer’ with route diagram. Also benefiting from a circular ticket hall was South Harrow, where the station was shifted slightly to provide entrances closer to the main road (1).
Given the climb from the street, a separate covered stairway was created, inset with clerestory windows; a circular building beside the entrance was used only for shops when the station opened on 5 July 1935. South Harrow was equipped with ‘neighbourhood’ maps (2), captioned ‘District within ¼ mile radius’; a similar style of map had been installed at Boston Manor in 1932, while its descendants can be seen at every station. The rebuild at Park Royal (3) by Felix James Lander (p. 155), in Holden style, opened on 1 March 1936. Here was another circular ticket hall, this time dwarfed by a 20.4m-high tower.
Logos for all London Transport, 1933-35
The creation in 1933 of an overarching body to co-ordinate transport in the capital (p. 154) called for a unified branding across all modes of transit. The LPTB therefore created a logo for itself and each of its operations, Underground, Tramway, General Bus, Green Line, Coach and Trolleybus (1), registering them as trademarks between 1934 and 1935. Each mode featured an enlarged first and last letter and the ‘pecking’ above and below the central letters. The artwork was again prepared by Johnston, who to begin with enlarged the inner white space of the circle, then placed the LPTB acronym above the bar inside the circle (from mid 1933). Lord Ashfield preferred the full trading name to the acronym, so on individual modes whose name was in the centre, ‘LONDON’ was placed above the bar and ‘TRANSPORT’ below (in 1934). The logo was to adorn everything, from annual reports to joint timetables. Until the Carr–Edwards report of 1938 issued stricter guidelines (p. 192), the bullseye became the base of numerous direction signs on the system, some more successful than others (2 and 3). The shape was also used for LT’s power generator ‘Northmet’, in which the logo was somewhat loosely interpreted.
Leisure for pleasure, 1932–34
A well-known commercial artist, Frank Newbould, produced twenty posters for transport in London and just a handful for the Underground, including this 1934 one, (1) promoting off-peak ‘Amusement’ in a delightfully whimsical style. Ernest Michael Dinkel’s pair of 1933 posters promoting the Empire (2) made great play on the bullseye logo.
Marc Fernand Severin created only six posters for the Underground, all during 1938; those featuring the bullseye as a clock and encouraging use of the Tube for leisure activities (3) are particularly distinctive. Anna Katrina Zinkeisen designed twenty Underground posters between 1934 and 1944 and often on a theme of fun outdoor activities. Dora M. Batty designed more posters for LT than any other female artist – her ‘Rose Garden’ of 1932 being one of the most exquisite (4).
Streamlined trains, 1935–7
Art Deco and Streamline Moderne dominated design on the London Underground in the 1930s and even trains were not immune. An experimental vehicle tried in 1933 was deemed unsatisfactory (p. 158), but by 1935 another version was tested; instead of being tapered in it had a flared-out prow (front end) and a domed roof with a stylish ventilation grille (1). The trains began running on the Piccadilly on 8 April 1937, to great acclaim by the press. Interiors were comfortable with moquette in pink, grey and cream. They inspired the sub-surface trains called ‘O Stock’ which appeared in 1937 (2).
These echoed the streamlining of the 1935 Stock but with flares along the sides as opposed to the front and were provided with a so-called ‘Chevron’ design moquette by Enid Marx (3). So many were ordered that they proved more enduring than their predecessors – the last of their splayed-out breed (‘P Stock’) being withdrawn in 1981 after forty-four years’ service on the Met, Circle, District and East London lines. ‘R Stock’ was the last incarnation of the flared trains, with a batch built in the 1950s. Both the 1935 Streamline and 1937 ‘O Stock’ (and their descendants) were classic pieces of Art Deco design, loved by Londoners for decades.
Birth of the 1938 Stock, 1935–8
Due to disquiet inside London Transport about the shape of the streamlined 1935 Tube stock, some of them (eventually all) were rebuilt with a flat front (1). The domed top of the cab and the stylish ‘feather’ ventilation grille were retained but the flare was removed and the cab end flattened out – prototypes were seen from 1937. The resulting design was so clean-looking and functional that it was applied to all the vehicles needed for the proposed expansions (over 1,100 trains in total). The style was named ‘1938 Stock’ and is seen by many as the seminal Tube train, critically acclaimed by the likes of the Architectural Review (1942), which commented: ‘[it] puts the rolling stock of the Paris Metro to utter shame and makes the Berlin U-Bahn appear heavy and pedestrian.’ Seating was upholstered in a new moquette, either Marion Dorn’s ‘Leaf’ (also referred to as ‘Colindale’) or Enid Marx’s ‘Chevron’, and there were new end-of-car ventilation grilles incorporating the car number in a bullseye (a much-sought-after collector’s item now, 3), while the Art Deco ‘shovel’ lamp shades were the same as those used in the 1935 streamlined stock (here, 3).
Every detail was carefully thought out: even the alarm pull was incorporated into the ceiling profile. Later moquette by Eddie Chapman featured a nested roundel in red and green and became the archetypal seat covering for this stock (p.191).
Paper trials for heavier metal, 1937–45
Tested for visibility at several busy West End stations (p. 156), paper friezes with the station name and bullseyes repeated along the strip were pasted on platform walls about 2m from the floor during September 1937 at Tottenham Court Road (1) and Strand.
To indicate an interchange, a red panel with the words ‘CENTRAL LINE’ and an arrow was inserted at intervals along the Tottenham Court Road frieze. At Strand there were black panels with ‘FOR THE SOUTHERN RAILWAY’ printed on them, intended for passengers looking for directions to Charing Cross. Signs with the words ‘NORTHERN LINE’ in a black panel were also tried at Strand. The experiment was seen as a success and the idea incorporated into the Carr–Edwards signage guidelines (pp. 155 and 192), which stipulated that they could be made from enamel. Due to the steel shortage, however, paper rolls were initially used instead and glued up at most tunnelled stations. Platforms in the new Bakerloo tunnel (opened 1939, p. 196) were given ceramic name friezes, an idea adopted elsewhere after successful trialling. The first enamel frieze plates were positioned along the walls of Piccadilly Circus platforms in 1945, where, oddly, a mistake was made and only the word ‘PICCADILLY’ appeared (2).
The line colour was later introduced in a band above and below the station names, which were in black. The line name was shown in the bar of the bullseye. Enamel versions were installed piecemeal and paper rolls were still being applied up until the late 1940s, many revealed during recent renovations. The name friezes have become a design feature of all tunnelled stations. Line diagrams were also trialled on the trackside wall (shown at Piccadilly Circus in 1947, 3) but these were not so successful.
Bullseye replicated around the world, mid 1930s onwards
The bullseye was proving to be a design asset in so many ways, partly because of its simplicity as a logo. It found echoes in station clocks (Ruislip Manor, 3) a barometer (Sudbury Town, 4), moquette (Eddie Chapman’s design, 2), signage (Kilburn, 5) and particularly in publicity material. No advertisement for the Underground plays with the bullseye shape better than the celebrated 1939 poster by Man Ray (1). Equating Saturn’s rings with the shape of the familiar bar and circle was, like many great ideas, both immediately obvious and a stroke of genius. It is a perennial best seller at the London Transport Museum shop. The bullseye design was also gaining international recognition, imitation being, as ever, the sincerest form of flattery. The shape was adopted in the mid 1930s for logo and signage of the underground Sydney City Rail stations (6), for instance. The closest of all is the one used by Chennai Suburban Railway in India (7). In 1937 the Paris Métro adopted a design that was wholly inspired by London, but swapping the colours to make the ring blue and used red for a capital ‘M’ set in the centre (8). Variations of this shape lasted until the early 1950s and the system still uses an ‘M’ in a circle. Transit operators in other cities that have adopted bullseye-type logos include Salt Lake City, Osaka and Tokyo (though this shape has now been replaced).
Implementing standardization, 1938
The 1938 Carr–Edwards report (p. 155) reveals early insights into ‘wayfinding’, including: ‘As the passenger enters the station, those who do not know how to make their journey will find the necessary information displayed in the ticket hall in the form of lists of stations served by the Board’s trains, with directions on how to reach each station.’ The accompanying ‘portfolio of drawings’ (1–5) was effectively the world’s first known graphic standards manual and it was fairly rigorously adhered to as the resulting signage show (6, 7, 8). Some public-transit bodies took decades to comprehend the need for such simplicity (New York City Subway, for example, took until the late 1960s to tackle its hodgepodge of mismatching signs). A large order was placed for enamelled signage adhering to the Carr–Edward guidelines, some of it delayed due to the onset of war and some of it displayed even before line refurbishment was completed (in certain cases never finished, such as the Northern line extension to Bushey). Some innovations had begun while the Carr–Edwards report was in progress, such as these illuminated direction roundels mounted on squat brass columns at the head and foot of escalators (9, 10). This ingenious incorporation of the bullseye shows how flexible it was as a design; the much-loved signs have been restored at heritage stations, even though such whimsical games with the official logo would fall short of stricter present-day guidelines on how the logo may be displayed.
Perfect proportions and stylish statements, 1938
The first draft for a new station at Rayners Lane would have been made by the Met architect Charles W. Clark and doubtless in his somewhat dated rural style. Negotiations over the shared site straddled the handover to the LPTB, so it was bequeathed to Reginald Harold Uren of Adams, Holden & Pearson (p. 154), who came up with the final design. The resulting station, perfectly proportioned with its brick-and-glass ticket hall and flanking semicircular retail units (1), opened on 8 August 1938. At the end of the line from here, Uxbridge station needed re-siting and after rejecting an earlier scheme (p. 157), Pick insisted upon one by Holden, which featured a train shed (2) similar in design to that at Cockfosters (p. 177). But Uxbridge (opened 4 December 1938) had a much grander entrance, with stained glass and two sculpted wheel motifs on the roof (3). In the forecourt stood a new sign: over 4m tall, it was a double-sided illuminated silhouette bullseye, a metre wide and in a shiny bronze casing (4). It sat atop three other illuminated blue strips (also bronze-cased), showing the station and line names, all mounted on a four-sided concrete pole. Such impressive totem-style signs were subsequently installed for several years across the network. Two other schemes of the same era had mixed fates: a massive rebuild of Hillingdon never materialized, but a Holden plan for Ruislip Manor was completed in 1938.
Northern knitting, 1937–9
Given what was planned for the Edgware–Morden line under the ‘Northern Heights’ scheme (still visible on the 1949 diagram, p. 220), one issue became problematic: what to call it. After many names were considered (including ‘Medgway’ and ‘Edgmor’), and owing to the works being chiefly in north London (of which ironically half were never completed), the route was called the ‘Northern line’ from August 1937. A steam train LNER line was to be electrified between East Finchley and High Barnet but the first section needed was a tunnel from the original Highgate terminus (which was hastily renamed ‘Highgate (Archway)’ on 11 June 1939 and then again ‘Archway (Highgate)’ in 1941) to the surface at East Finchley, where a very large new station was designed by L. H. Bucknell working with Adams, Holden & Pearson (1).
Double-height spiral staircases on the platforms led to offices over the tracks and the creation of a striking lead-cladded statue of an archer by Eric Aumonier (2), set on a plinth and with bow aimed towards London.
Cast-concrete lamp stands doubled as station-name and poster holders (3). East Finchley, opened on 3 July 1939, has recently been tastefully restored, and is now a Grade II listed building, but it has never reached its full potential as an interchange station owing to the cancellation of the Northern Heights programme in 1953.
A stitch just in time, 1939–41
The station before East Finchley was to be named Highgate (forcing the older station just south of there to change its name). Built in the tunnel, it did not open until 19 January 1941 as it required complex work to link to the surface platforms that were part of the old LNER route from Finsbury Park (which was to be electrified for the Northern Heights plan). Highgate platforms featured biscuit-cream tiles and station-name friezes by Stabler (like the new Bakerloo stations, p. 196, 3). As the entire project was so complex and costly, very few of the stations being electrified towards High Barnet (with the exception of East Finchley, 3) had any major work done on them, hence they looked a bit disconnected from the network when opened on 14 April 1941, as advertised on several posters, (1 and 2).
Holden did design stations for the entirely new section proposed from Edgware to Bushey, but this part was never completed. Yet more station rebuilds were ready just before the onset of war, for example at Eastcote – a Holden ‘brick box with concrete lid’ flanked by rounded shop fronts – and at St Paul’s, where platforms were reconstructed (1939). Here new signage was installed on railed stairwell entrances and a wrought-iron figure of the saint incorporated into the metalwork (5). The totems outside (4) were similar to those at Uxbridge (p. 193).
Stabler’s stylish signage for new Bakerloo, 1939
Opening on 29 November 1939, the new Bakerloo section was streamlined, practical and stylish. The platforms built at Swiss Cottage and St John’s Wood featured beautiful biscuit-cream tiles lining walls and had tiled station-name friezes (2, 3) – also installed on the new platforms at Baker Street. The station name alternated with tiles bearing plain bullseyes. Eighteen special relief-moulded tiles were commissioned from Harold Stabler (shown here) and set along the wall on the platform side, intermingled with plain tiles. Nameboard bullseyes were of the outline variety and above each was displayed the line name (and is now part of the Jubilee line, pp. 248–9), with a ‘WAY OUT’ direction sign below. The escalator shafts had the squat brass uplighters and at the top and foot were bullseyes mounted on stands with ‘TO TRAINS’ or ‘WAY OUT’ on the blue bar (p. 192). These stations are regarded by many as the epitome of the Holden/Art Deco era. Miniature bullseyes (30cm in diameter, 5) were placed on the trackside and on the passimeter in the ticket hall. It was Heaps, however, who designed the only new surface building at St John’s Wood (provisional name Acacia Road) – a drum-shaped ticket hall flanked by curving wings housing retail units and station offices (1). Such was this station’s appeal that it graced the front of a Puffin children’s book (published 1946, 4).
Bakerloo ballyhoo, 1939–40
Where the tunnels emerged at Finchley Road, the ‘new’ section of Bakerloo line took over all the stations between there and Wembley Park (while the Met ran as an express route alongside), then adopted the Met’s former branch from Wembley Park to Stanmore (p. 180). Many stations received upgrades to bring them into line with the contemporary Underground style: elegant Art Deco waiting rooms with glazed rounded ends were installed at Dollis Hill (2); Kilburn was given a re-modelled entrance between the two overbridges; and Queensbury was provided with a ‘mushroom’ shelter (1).
Multi-purpose concrete lamp standards with built-in station-name bullseyes and poster frames also featured on most island platforms. Any red diamond station-name boards left over from the Met were replaced with LT bullseyes, and all direction signage was updated to reflect the new identity of the route – three-flighted arrows being in vogue (p. 191).
Lofty ambitions dropped, 1940–45
Despite the most valiant efforts of LT engineers and architects, the international crisis placed many of the NWP schemes on hold, some of them never making it back on the agenda after the war. One of these was the enormous project for Harrow-on-the-Hill, which would have created the largest suburban interchange station, combined with offices (1).
Though a scaled-down version of it was made (south entrance by 1939 and the north side by January 1943), it was nothing like the imposing structure previously envisaged. On the other side of London, the LNER was working with LT to prepare its line to Epping for electrification and takeover by the Underground. John Murray Easton was commissioned to work on the stations between Woodford and Ongar, but only Loughton was completed, opening on 28 April 1940, although not served by Central line trains until 1948 (2). In preparation for electrification of the western Central line to Ruislip, Brian G. Lewis was to design the stations, but, as with Easton, just one of his designs was initially completed, at West Acton (3 and seating, 4) – opening in November 1940 and, like so much great design, looking equally good seven decades later.
Propaganda posters, 1939–45
Bomb damage sustained by London and the Underground during the Second World War was horrendous (and is amply documented elsewhere – most books in the Bibliography include a section on it), but staff at the publicity office (like so many others) just kept on working, nothing daunted. Admittedly many of the items produced during this period were functional warning notices, especially for those sheltering in the deep-level stations which provided so much protection during air raids (8, 9, 10), but the creative spirit was not dampened. Several series were commissioned, such as Fred Taylor’s eight morale-boosting ‘Back Room Boys – They Also Serve’ (1942, 3); Hans Schleger’s ‘Blackout’ set (1943, 2); ‘The Proud City’, Walter Spradberry’s series of six (1944); and Eric Kennington’s beautiful studies of individual workers, ‘Seeing It Through’ (1944, 6). A series by Robert Austin may have featured chiefly historical heroes, but his Churchill poster certainly summed up the mood of the age (1943, 1), as did Lowes Dalbiac Luard’s fierce ‘Spirit of 1943’ (5). The series on Tube manners by popular cartoonist Fougasse are still best sellers (4), while Fred Taylor’s evocative 1945 poster of the work needed to return the city back to some kind of normality summed up the ‘make do and mend’ ethos of the immediate post-war years (7).
