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Frank Pick
- 1. . F . F Frank Pick (1878- 1941) Frank Pick: ‘It is certain that the future of London cannot be an accident like the past. If it is to hold together, to remain a workable, manageable unit, it must now be planned, be designed, be organised ‘ 1926.
- 2. Frank Pick Started working for London UERL 1906, became Managing Director 1928, CEO & Vice Chair of London Passenger Transport Board 1933- 1940 Had strong interest in design and its use in public life Commissioned eye-catching commercial art, graphic design and modern architecture. Branding including the roundel and the typeface still used today Under his direction, the underground network and associated bus services expanded considerably stimulating the growth of the London suburbs His impact on the growth of London between the wars has led to him being likened to Baron Haussmann and Robert Moses.
- 3. – Thomas Heatherwick “Frank Pick’s vision was of a public transport system that did not just get you to where you needed to go but also tried to make a meaningful contribution to the culture of the city.”
- 5. Charles Holden (1875 - 1960) • In 1924, with plans for the City & South London Railway (C&SLR) extension, Pick commissioned Charles Holden to design the station buildings in a new style. They replaced designs by Underground’s own architect Stanley Heaps. • Vision of efficient, technological modernity • Designed more than 50 tube stations built over a 24 year period (1924-1948)
- 6. • Streamlined and simplified designs Welcoming, brightly lit with large, uncluttered ticket halls Quick access to trains via escalators Tickets issued from a number of ‘passimeters’ - glazed booths at the centre of the ticket hall Tickets issued from a number of ‘passimeters’ - glazed booths at the centre of the ticket hall Tickets issued from a number of ‘passimeters’ - glazed booths at the centre of the ticket hall Tickets issued from a number of ‘passimeters’ - glazed booths at the centre of the ticket hall Modernism: “a new architectural idiom”
- 8. Influence of European architecture • Pick & Holden made short tour of Germany, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands - July/August 1930 • Pick greatly excited by the ‘Amsterdam school’ of Architecture. • Willem Marinus Dudok in Hilversum • In Denmark, Pick impressed with the way designers responsible for all elements of a building.
- 9. Ostereley Kantoorgebouw de Telegraaf, Amsterdam, J.F. Staal & G.J. Langhout 1930 Hilversum Raadhuis, W.M.Dudok 1928
- 10. Arnos Grove Stockholm Public Library, 1928, Erik Gunnar Asplund Krumme Lanke, 1929, Alfred Grenander Rotonde de la Villette, 1784
- 11. Brick boxes with concrete lids Sudbury Town, July 1931, Charles Holden Het Schip, 1919, Amsterdam, Michel de Klerk Krasnoye Znamya, 1926-37, St. Petersburg, E. Mendelson De Bijenkorf, 1926,The Hague, Piet Kramer
- 13. Sudbury Town Underground Station • Concrete and brick booking hall • Elegantly proportioned • Cantilevered canopies • Curved waiting room • Large panels of glazing • Spacious and well lit • Two Art Deco uplighter in booking hall. Bauhaus style hoop & sphere lamps.
- 14. Sudbury Town signage • Front and rear elevations had a neon name sign • Signs in Delf Smith’s ‘petit serif’ version of Johnston. • Station nameboards in same typeface unique & never repeated. • Also used at select places in in the Piccadilly rebuild.
- 16. • First cylindrical ticket hall in Britain • Flat concrete roof supported by 16 sided cylindrical column with a circular passimeter at base. • The Observer described it as an ‘architectural gem of unusual purity.’ • Station furniture included double - sided wooden seats holding the roundel. • Its shape inspired many other stations
- 17. Southgate • Designed after Arnos Grove 1933 • Revolutionary - a spectacular circular creation • Took island setting of the ticket hall to logical conclusion - gracefully balanced & geometrically perfect • Resembles a spaceship • Lighting beacon said to have inspired the design for top half of the Daleks. • One of finest examples of Art Deco/Streamline Moderne
- 18. Frank Pick’s Legacy • ‘almost impossible to exaggerate the high regard in which (London Transport) was held during its all too brief heyday.’ Christian Wolmar (Transport historian) • ‘the greatest patron of the arts’ Nikolaus Pevsner 1968 • Corporate identity & visual style, holistic design. • Developed vision for the future of London in the 1930s - put an improved urban lifestyle for all at centre, in contrast to grandiose plans of European dictators. • Modernist architecture - ‘the test of the goodness of a thing is its fitness for use. If it fails on the first test, no amount of ornamentation or finish will make it any better; it will only make it more expensive, more foolish.’
- 19. Find out more…… • Frank Pick’s London: Art, Design and the Modern City (2013) Oliver Green, V & A Publishing • London Underground by Design (2013) Mark Ovenden, Penguin • Man Who Built London Transport: Biography of Frank Pick (1979), Christian Barman, David & Charles • http://design.designmuseum.org/design/frank-pick
Editor's Notes
- British transport administrator from Lincolnshire. His strong interest in design and its use in public life led to development of London Underground’s corporate identity and many modernist designed underground stations - the most iconic built in the 1930s and listed buildings today. This talk is mainly about extension of Piccadilly Line to the west and north in the 1930s and the modernist streamlined buildings that were produced as a result. They represented some of the sharpest architecture of their time - some of the finest modernist buildings of the era. Great publicist for design & the arts. In 1908 had become publicity officer so used to marketing. Publicity varied in sophistication from crude new build photographs Postcard - Arnos Grove, Bounds Green & Turnpike Lane. to more imaginative designs. McKnight Kauffer’s Giant Hand and Cecil Walter Bacon’s paper roll
- Frank Pick was an articled clerk in 1902 but then worked for the north east railway. At the Underground Electric Railway Co London he rose through the corporate ranks & became managing Director in 1928. Commissioned many artists/designers. Just seen work of two of them. Others included Graham Sutherland, Paul Nash, Laszio Maholy- Nagy and Enid Marx. Haussmann Paris in 1860s Robert Moses NYC in mid 20th century
- Famous poster by Man Ray 1938 shows the roundel of London Transport mirrored in space by Saturn.
- Frank Pick steered the development of the London Undergound’s corporate identity by commissioning eye catching commercial art, graphic design and modern architecture, establishing a highly recognisable brand, including first versions of roundel & typeface still used today. Red & blue roundel developed over many years from 1908. Design by Edward Johnston 1920 - red circle blue rectangle and Capitalised U & G outside red circle. Tube map 1933 designed by an engineer Harry Beck - not commissioned by Frank Pick but Modernist ethos at the time arguably led to Harry Beck designing it and having the confidence to re submit it when it was rejected. Simple lettering, roundel, wooden seats between concrete pillars. Brick and glass modernist tube station with ‘ inviting doorway in an architectural setting that cannot be missed by the casual pedestrian’. this implied starting conceptually with the entrance & the lighting.
- Pick first met Charles Holden in 1915 at the Design & Industries Association (DIA) & saw modernist architect as someone he could work with to define what Pick called a ‘new architectural idiom’.
- Pleased with Holden’s designs. In 1926, at a DIA dinner, he said ‘ that a new style of architectural decoration will arise leading to a Modern London - modern not garbled classic or Renaissance. Holden redesignedPiccadilly station 1925-8 with wide subterranean concourse & ticket hall built beneath a road junction.
- Cut away diagram from a children’s book shows just how complex design of underground station was. You can clearly see the roomy concourse needed as users gone up from 1.5 million in 1902 to 22 million in 1922.
- Pick wanted new type of building for more open sites of stations on the Piccadilly line’s extensions. To decide what new type should look like……. Amsterdam school of Architecture probably best exemplified here by Het Schip, Amsterdam . Arose between 1910-30 in the Netherlands and part of International Expressionist architecture. Imbued with socialist ideals, often applied to WC housing, local institutions and schools. Characteristics - Brick construction with complicated masonry rounded or organic appearance relatively traditional massing - size and shape integration of elaborate scheme of building elements inside and out e.g. decorative masonry, art glass, wrought iron work, spires or ladders windows with horizontal bars & integrated architectural sculpture. Aims to create a total architectural experience inside and out Hilversum Raadhuis, Stockholm Public Library, Krumme Lanke, Het Schip.
- Still debated how far Pick and Holden were influenced by their visit. Certainly not copy. Considered best elements of European architecture at time & included features that worked both practically and stylistically. Square towers seen inspired Holden’s design for Osterley and the telegraph building in Amsterdam must have influenced the design of the lighting tower which provided a beacon for travellers coming into the west part of the city.
- The rotunda of these two buildings possibly inspired tube stations like Arnos Grove and Chiswick Park.
- Sudbury Town station was the first reconstructed in the new style - Holden’s brick boxes with concrete lids - in July 1931. The glass curtain wall of de Bijenkorf and trademark exposed brick and curved edges of the Amsterdam school was replicated in stations like sudbury Twon and others.
- Can see the influence in Holden’s designs for Arnos Grove and Chiswick Park.
- Brick box with a concrete lid sounds uninspiring but far from it. The box is double height, with four large windows arranged symmetrically above the entrance and rising to the name frieze below the cornice and flat roof. Promoted the efficient movement of people (Holden prepared graphs showing passenger mvt - first time design had been scientifically based & showed an appreciation of what now would be called way finding) through an inviting and generously spaced ticket hall and covered waiting areas. Leap forward in underground station design. Pevsner ‘ an outstanding example of how satisfying such unpretentious buildings can be purely through the use of careful details and good proportions. Using Sudbury Town as his blueprint, Holden created a kit of parts for all the Piccadilly Line stations. Everything had a unique consistent style.
- Pick complained that ticket machines had been dumped on platforms ‘ Somehow there seems to be a desire on the part of everyone to break p and destroy the tidiness and spaciousness of this station, The only way in which in my opinion the spaciousness can be filled properly is by passengers and not by a lot of impediments.’ Asked operation manager to provide Holden with a list of necessary fixtures and Holden instructed to design or approve everything from seats & ticket machines to clocks and litter bins & to determine their final position Every detail considered including signage. At Sudbury Town all signage in petit serif. This station shook the architectural establishment & provided ideas replicated in many public buildings throughout the land , from hospitals to schools, benefits offices to power stations. Called ‘rationalist'.
- This shows the commonality in design of the stations but no two are identical. Northfields - opened Dec 1932. Built on flat roofed single storey buildings. Double height tower appears set back . Glazing on all 4 sides of tower, daylight floods ticket hall. Stained glass roundel on window centrally mounted on front elevation. Here has favourite piece of furniture - 3 faced concrete mount for station named roundel flanked on either side by poster holder. Wood Green also double height ticket hall but had curving frontage with vent towers either side. Towers Lighting spire of Osterley 1934. Glass & steel lighted tower of Boston Manor 1934 (said to be based on de Volharding building in the Hague, designed by Jan W. E. Buys), rectangular squat tower Chiswick Park. Rotundas of Chiswick Park (April 1932), Arnos Grove (1932), Southgate (1933) Concrete and glass train shed at Cockfosters - major feat of structural engineering. Acton Town.
- One of most quintessential tube stations ever built. Opened before Chiswick Park as the temporary terminus for the Piccadilly extension.other stations include - Berlins Olynpia- Stadion 91936), Park Royal (1936), Hanger Lane (1948), Canada Water (1999) and Walthamstow ( 2005). Grade II listed building.
- Constructed as a bus/ train interchange.. Possibly influenced by Krumme Lanke Based on Tesla coil - transformer which allows wireless transfer of electricity. Huge roof is supported by retaining walls and single central column with ticket office beneath. Up lighters. Shopping arcade wraps around ticket hall, its curved units echoing the main building. Streamline moderne - is a late type of the Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Its architectural style emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements.
- Compared to Lord Reith of the BBC. Frank Pick barely acknowledged in lifetime. Refused knighthood. Given freedom of the city of London and the Honorary Badge of the Moscow Soviet for his advice on the planning of the Moscow Metro. Changed face of modern London and experience of the city. No other city is defined so much by the appearance of its public transport system. Newspaper report.