Arnos Grove Underground

Selected by

Catherine Croft, Director c20 society

Catherine Croft is Director of the Twentieth Century Society and is a regular contributor to a number of architectural journals, including Building Design. Catherine read Architecture at Cambridge University, and did an MA in Material Culture & Architectural History in the USA, where she held a fellowship at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware.
Location

Bowes Road, London W11
Architecture

Charles Holden under the direction of Frank Pick.

Opened 1932

Grade II* listed

In the 1930s London’s underground stations were powerful reminders of the value of good architecture, being used by millions over a year. Considered by many to be the finest work by Charles Holden, Arnos Grove was built in modern European style using brick and glass, with geometric shapes – deceptively simple in design but its very simplicity giving it the perfect combination of form and function. A key feature of Holden’s work on Arnos Grove is the generous window space.

A Manchester-educated draper’s son who twice declined offers of a knighthood, Charles Holden also designed the Bristol Central Library and the University of London’s Senate House.

He championed an unadorned style based on simplified forms and free of what he considered to be unnecessary decorative detailing. He was also a firm believer that buildings should be dictated by the building’s function.

It was through his involvement with the Design and Industries Association that Holden met Frank Pick, general manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London and during the ‘20s Holden designed a number of underground stations for him. Lincolnshire-born Frank Pick became managing director of the Underground Group in 1928 but he had earlier been its publicity officer – and art and design remained his first love. He was responsible for steering the development of London Underground’s corporate identity using highly effective graphic design and architecture to establish the underground as a brand.

Holden and Pick travelled together to Europe in 1930 to see the latest developments in modern architecture, with Sudbury Town Station being the first station resulting from this tour (Grade II listed*). The design of Arnos Grove was influenced by Stockholm’s Public Library.
Interesting facts

Some of the original signs are in a ‘petit-serif’ adaptation of the London Underground typeface, Johnston Delf Smith Sans. This typeface was designed by Charles Holden and Percy Delf Smith.
Resources

www.hiddenlondon.com

Best Buildings Britain by Matthew Freedman published by Luster

..It’s therefore both a boldly modern building and one which unobtrusively makes complex historical references.

There is something very appealing about the simple geometric forms of Arnos Grove tube station—it feels as if it ought to look sleek and futuristic, but somehow it’s most like a biscuit tin with a skinny breadboard balanced on top. It’s both cool and comforting.

A vintage image of the ticket hall © Paul

I live on the southern end of the Northern line, and have always felt that the stations Charles Holden did for us (and those along the western end of the Piccadilly line) were rather less exciting than the northern Piccadilly line extension ones, of which Arnos Grove is definitely the star. From Clapham South to Morden, Holden’s Northern Line stations are built as if to kick-start suburban shopping parades, with rectilinear facades hugging the pavement line. Arnos Grove is very different—a tight little freestanding structure which has been a listed building since 1971. It gives a real sense of occasion to taking the tube, and acts as a distinctive landmark in an otherwise fairly uniform bit of three-bedroom semi-land.

Stepping into the booking hall and plunging down the escalators feels like inserting oneself into the pneumatic delivery system of an early C20 department store. The building reads as the projecting tip of a big underground alternative universe with a different rhythm of life.

The station looks particularly great at night. Passing through its glowing form adds excitement to the prospect of an evening out in town, and enhances a friendly homecoming. Its amazingly unaltered and retains lots of original features from the 1930s, including the grandly named “passimeter” – basically a fancy term for ticket booth and turnstile.

The ticket hall at Arnos Grove today

Inside the exposed concrete roof is supported on a single giant, concrete column, recalling the dramatic structure of a chapter house in a medical cathedral. Outside the flat oversailing rim of the circular concrete roof has a dentilled soffit, such as is found over the cornice of classical buildings. It’s therefore both a boldly modern building and one which unobtrusively makes complex historical references. It’s an excellent example of good, inspiring design put to everyday use. And it’s worked brilliantly for nearly a century.

...Homely yet magnificent, modest yet capacious, the design of Arnos Grove is a brilliant architectural tightrope act. In London, despite the bravura qualities of some of the stations built in the 1990s for theJubilee line extension, its design has never been bettered.
Jonathan Glancey writing for the Guardian

..It’s therefore both a boldly modern building and one which unobtrusively makes complex historical references.

...Homely yet magnificent, modest yet capacious, the design of Arnos Grove is a brilliant architectural tightrope act. In London, despite the bravura qualities of some of the stations built in the 1990s for theJubilee line extension, its design has never been bettered.

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