Southgate tube station
Designed by Charles Holden in 1933, after he’d gone on a jolly with Frank Pick, chief executive of London Transport, to look at modernist architecture in Europe, Southgate is one of the most striking stations on the underground. The Grade II* listed, Art Deco modernist building is famous for being circular, and also for having a bus station attached, which is curved. The whole place is red-bricked, circular and curved, making it pleasing to the eye.
As other commentators have noted, the station looked beautiful back in the day, like a gleaming, clean alien spaceship. Nowadays there’s just so much urban junk around – railings, bins, bus shelters, posters, road signs, street lamps, er, people – it dilutes the purity of the vision.
There are lots of architectural details and flourishes to the station, inside and out, including the Art Deco spire on the top, the lights above the London Underground roundel, an ancient Greek-inspired key pattern running all around it and the white capital lettering of Johnson Sans against the bricks.
• More about the station at The Beauty of Transport.
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