London Tube Stations 1924-1961

Description

Charles Holden's designs for the London Underground from the mid-1920s to the outbreak of World War II represent a high point of transport architecture and Modernist design in Britain. His collaboration with Frank Pick, the Chief Executive of London Transport, brought about a marriage of form and function still celebrated today. Pick used the term 'Medieval Modernism' to describe their work on the underground system, comparing the task to the construction of a great cathedral. London Tube Stations 1924 - 1961 catalogues and showcases every surviving station from this innovative period. These beautiful buildings, simultaneously historic and futuristic, have been meticulously documented by architectural photographer Philip Butler. Annotated with station-by-station overviews by writer and historian Joshua Abbott, the book provides an indispensable guide to the network's Modernist gems. All the key stations have a double page spread, with a primary exterior photograph alongside supporting images. A broader historical introduction, illustrated with archival images from the London Transport Museum, gives historical context, while a closing chapter lists the demolished examples alongside further period images.These stations, as famed architectural historian Nicholas Pevsner later noted, would "pave the way for the twentieth-century style in England".

Philip Butler is a Worcestershire based photographer focusing primarily on documenting the remains of Great Britain's inter-war architecture. His other books include Odeon Relics - Nineteen-Thirties Icons in the Twenty-First Century, an annotated series documenting the surviving buildings constructed by the iconic cinema chain in the 1930s. Joshua Abbott is a historian, tour guide and photographer based in Welwyn Garden City. His Modernism in Metroland website and social media feeds have been cataloguing and celebrating Greater London's Modernist architecture for over ten years. Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell have been publishing critically acclaimed books on design and architecture since 2004.