FUNCTIONALISM, AND THE BUS

200 years ago the first ‘omnibus’, carrying, without booking, up to 20 passengers, ‘inside’ and ‘on top’, to an advertised timetable, along a fixed route, cheaply, set off from Paddington, for the Bank of England, along the ‘New Road’*.

So we’re going to meet at Stockwell Station, once the terminus of the world’s 1st deep-level, electric railway, and then walk, or ride the No 2 bus**, from the 1952 Stockwell Bus Garage (pictured) to Victoria Bus Station, busiest in London, by way of the dramatic 2004 Vauxhall Cross Bus Station, 2nd busiest, noting along the route the features added to the system since that time, which we now take for granted, like: route numbers, fixed stops, 2 covered decks, a distinctive logo, red buses, own typeface, quiet, clean vehicles, a co-ordinated network, and interchange to other routes and to other transport modes.

Stockwell Garage, designed by Adie Button, is a vast monolithic ‘art object’, a single sculptural shell of reinforced concrete, filling an entire city block, and capable of stabling 200 buses as part of the tram replacement project, in a column-free space the size of 4 Olympic swimming pools.

Arup Associates’ design of the Vauxhall Interchange won a competition in 2002: a 200m long, 12m wide, ribbon of stainless steel, covering the bus stops, then launching skyward at 20˚, like a pair of skis poised at the top of a jump, to catch sunlight on PV cells.

Since 2013 it has been repeatedly earmarked for removal to facilitate the luxury housing developments: we may be among the last groups to see it alive!

Both follow the tradition of ‘functionalism’ led by Frank Pick, CEO of the LPTB***, and his architect, Charles Holden, from 1934: the design of the transport system was to be simple and fit for purpose.

Buildings would be light-filled, modernist beacons, the architecture an exact expression of the passengers’ patterns of use, and superfluous ornament would be excluded, leaving geometric clarity.

But just as it reaches maturity the bus network is facing challenges: average speeds falling, the gap between off- and peak demand widening, and becoming unpredictable: costs rise while income falls, funds are short and design standards are slipping.

The canopy at Victoria Bus Station has been removed.

Vauxhall is scheduled for demolition.

New bus designs, such as the ‘New Bus for London’, and the BYD BD11, have exhibited reproduction styling, gaudy LED lights, and extreme overheating.

So, for inspiration, we’re going to look for functionalism, with an open mind, on the buses, and in the serious, weird, wonderful and even downright wacky buildings along the route.

Including:
· London Borough of Lambeth’s George Finch-designed Edrich House, the Wates LPS pre-fabricated storey-height slab system subordinated to the architect’s design with stunning results. One of 4 similar towers around Lambeth. Brutalism rendered inspiring by giving it jagged profiles and top, with each flat visually expressed. If only all pre-fab local authority tower blocks could have been designed so carefully. Now partly painted, which softens its brutality.
· Vauxhall Cross, aka the MI6 HQ, by Terry Farrell & Co, 1989-92. Charles Jencks described it as a ‘hanging garden’: it’s certainly a Thames ‘Palace’: But is it Hollywood, Mayan Ziggurat, Art Deco or Beaux Arts? Designed as a speculative project, so intuiting intrigue is just imagination!
· Berkeley Homes’ 1400-apartment St George Wharf, 2001-10, memorable for its broken-curve gable roofs. Despite only ever being shortlisted for the ‘UK’s Ugliest New Building’ award, in 2006, the internet now firmly asserts that it has twice been voted ‘Worst Building in the World’.
· The 1976-85 Drummond Gate buildings, Phase 1, 1976-83, by William Whitfield, above Pimlico Station, a ‘medieval castle’, with ‘battlements’, ‘arrow-slit’ windows, thick defensive walls, and a ‘moat’…and Phase 2, 1983-5 by Chapman Taylor, a functional office block now let as the Head Office of the John Lewis Partnership.
· Passing the site of the now re-developed Victoria Bus Garage, the only one in Central London, demolished in 1999, at the time of closure serving only 6 routes and 65 buses, we arrive at Victoria Bus Station. It served the 18 m long articulated buses operating route 38, between 2005-9. It had an overall roof, now removed. Now consists only of bus stop posts and narrow raised footways.
· The much pinnacled, red-panelled Nova Building, 2016, in Victoria Street, by PLP Architecture, really did win the Carbuncle Cup, in 2017, and was described by the judges, as, among other things, ‘a hideous mess’ and ‘a crass assault on the senses’.

No functionalism? We will console ourselves on the ‘Market Halls’ Rooftop Terrace and food court, above the Victoria Station District Line station, and overlooking the Bus Station, with Gourmet Kebabs, Malaysian Street Food, Thai Cuisine, and Artisanal Italian Gelato!

Hope you can come!

Andy

*now Marylebone, Euston and Pentonville Roads
**if it’s too hot to walk. You will need a valid Oystercard or ticket, or a contactless debit card. The route 2 is one of the oldest continuously operated routes in London, first operated in 1905, by the very earliest motor buses.
***the London Passenger Transport Board bought out all London’s privately owned transport companies, paying them in cash and stock, and was responsible for transport from Luton to Horsham, and from Windsor to Tilbury.