Metropolitan District Railway offices at Acton, London : interiors: in Ferro-Concrete Review, March 1933
A less well known and little seen building by Adams, Holden & Pearson for the Underground Group is this office block that stands within the Underground's Acton Works in west London. The article, in Ferro-Concrete Review for March 1933, describes the construction using reinforced concrete and the architectural detailing that is 'free from applied decoration or ornament'. The building has, as is noted, "a continuity of design" with other buildings by the architects for the Underground Group and this is the case. During the late 1920s and at the time of writing in 1933 Charles Holden, as consultant architect to the Underground, had just delivered a sequence of new Modernist station buildings that made much use of concrete and brickwork as seen here at Acton.
The building still stands in the Acton Works that helps service the London Underground train fleet although I suspect, even within LU, we'd half ascribed this building to the company's own architect S A Heaps, who collaborated with Holden on various station designs as well as undertaking the design of many of the ancilliary structures on the Underground. The building is shown as having been commissioned by the Metropolitan District Railway that was one of the component subsidiary comapnies within the Underground Group. In a few months time all would be gathered up into the new London Passenger Transport Board, better known as London Transport.
These photos show an 'executive' office, very LT back in the day when your grade determined the dimensions of your desik, if your chair had arms and if you had a square of carpet in fron of your desk! The lower image shows the Drawing Office - along with someone smiling into the camera!
Metropolitan District Railway offices at Acton, London : interiors: in Ferro-Concrete Review, March 1933
A less well known and little seen building by Adams, Holden & Pearson for the Underground Group is this office block that stands within the Underground's Acton Works in west London. The article, in Ferro-Concrete Review for March 1933, describes the construction using reinforced concrete and the architectural detailing that is 'free from applied decoration or ornament'. The building has, as is noted, "a continuity of design" with other buildings by the architects for the Underground Group and this is the case. During the late 1920s and at the time of writing in 1933 Charles Holden, as consultant architect to the Underground, had just delivered a sequence of new Modernist station buildings that made much use of concrete and brickwork as seen here at Acton.
The building still stands in the Acton Works that helps service the London Underground train fleet although I suspect, even within LU, we'd half ascribed this building to the company's own architect S A Heaps, who collaborated with Holden on various station designs as well as undertaking the design of many of the ancilliary structures on the Underground. The building is shown as having been commissioned by the Metropolitan District Railway that was one of the component subsidiary comapnies within the Underground Group. In a few months time all would be gathered up into the new London Passenger Transport Board, better known as London Transport.
These photos show an 'executive' office, very LT back in the day when your grade determined the dimensions of your desik, if your chair had arms and if you had a square of carpet in fron of your desk! The lower image shows the Drawing Office - along with someone smiling into the camera!