| Leslie Green | |
|---|---|
Leslie Green, c 1905 |
|
| Born | 1875 Maida Vale, London |
| Died | 31 August 1908 |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Architect |
Leslie William Green (1875—31 August 1908) was an English architect known especially for his design of iconic stations constructed on the London Underground railway system in central London during the first decade of the 20th century.
Green was born in Maida Vale, London in 1875 and was the son of Architect and Crown Surveyor Arthur Green and his wife Emily.[1] After studying in London and Paris he set up a practice as an Architect in 1897. Green married Mildred Ethel Wildy[1][2] in 1902 and had a daughter Vera.
Contents |
Early commissions included works to homes and shops in various parts of the capital city and in 1899 he was accepted as a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)[1].
In 1903 he was appointed as Architect for the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) to design stations for three underground railway lines then under construction — the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (GNP&BR), the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR) and the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR), which, respectively, became parts of the present day Piccadilly line, Bakerloo line and Northern line.
The ground level station buildings were designed to a uniform Arts and Crafts style which was adapted to suit the individual station location. They were constructed as two-storey buildings with a structural steel frame — then a new form of construction recently imported from the United States. The steel frames provided the large internal spaces needed for ticket halls and lift shafts. They were clad in non-loadbearing ox-blood red glazed terracotta blocks, with the ground floor divided into wide bays by columns and featured large semi-circular windows at first floor level and a heavy dentilated cornice above.
The station buildings were constructed with flat roofs with the deliberate aim of encouraging commercial office development above, another benefit of the load-bearing structural steel frame. Strangely very few of the surviving buildings are listed with only three, Holloway Road, Mornington Crescent & Gloucester Road listed.
At platform level, the stations were provided with a standardised tiling design incorporating the station name, but with quickly identified individual colour schemes and geometric tile patterns formed in repeating panels along the platform length.
The railways were to open in 1906 and 1907 and the pressure of producing designs and supervising the works to so many stations in such a short period of time, placed a strain on Green's health. He was elected a Fellow of the RIBA in 1907, including details of his work for the UERL as part of his submission, but contracted tuberculosis and died on 31 August 1908[1][3] at the age of 33.
Many of Green's station buildings survive, although internal modifications have seen most of his ticket hall designs altered to suit later developments. At platform levels a number of the original tiling schemes survive today or have, as at Lambeth North and Marylebone, been reproduced in recent years to the original pattern.
|
Bakerloo line
|
Piccadilly line
|
Northern line
|
Images from the Photographic Archive of the London Transport Museum
|
Bakerloo line
|
Piccadilly line
|
Northern line
|
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Buildings_by_Leslie_Green Buildings by Leslie Green] at Wikimedia Commons
