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On the left, London's new water fountains.
Oh the right, a Victorian example.
The collapse in quality is profound and goes far beyond design.
We appear to have lost any sense of civic pride, to be unable to build for the future rather than for the next few weeks.....
😡☹️
Oh the right, a Victorian example.
The collapse in quality is profound and goes far beyond design.
We appear to have lost any sense of civic pride, to be unable to build for the future rather than for the next few weeks.....
😡☹️
Amongst the dozens of more humane, more civic designs for public water fountains we’ve been sent here are 2 favourites ...
More widely, the idea that public street furniture cannot both learn from the past & innovate for the future is clearly wrong. Arguably the most successful example of all time is the British telephone kiosk which was inspired by this....
... the grave of Sir John Soane, one of Britain’s greatest Architects. In 1924 Giles Gilbert Scott had just become a trustee of the John Soane museum & the design was clearly in his mind ...
.... when the Royal Fine Art Commission organised a competition for a telephone kiosk. Here’s one of his original prototypes in wood (though he suggested painted in silver). Of course it’s very derivative with its Soanian reeding and dome.
The Post Office made them in cast iron and started installing them across London in the 1920s & 1930s. Design classic hardly does it justice.
Sometimes they come in groups.
In 1935 Scott designed another smaller and cheaper model. You can see it alongside the original here. This was erected widely outside London. By 1940 Britain had 35,000 telephone kiosks -mainly of the new smaller model.
In the 1980s @bt_uk introduced the KX. Like London’s new water fountain (their equivalent) they were trapped by arguments of utility, they were cheaper to run (the aim) but widely reviled ...
The @guardian commented: “BT has done its utmost to turn the phone box from one of the most famous and elegant pieces of street furniture into the most boringly ugly.” Campaigns were waged to save the classic design but to little avail
But here’s the rub, you may have noticed, humanity’s infinite potential for creativity has invented these brilliant things. We don’t need phone boxes any more. So what’s happened?
Well no one has fought for these to survive...
... but the classic, popular, beautiful pattern has not just survived, it’s (astonishingly) making a revival. This man, Tony Inglis, is one of those who helps communities preserve & reinvent their phone kiosks as ...
...defibrillators...
... pocket libraries ...
...repair booths...
... even coffee shops....
The moral ? The moral is Keatsian. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever". ..
It’s incredibly easy to tell what is ugly, flimsy & tacky. These both are. They are trapped by their utility & a short term (flawed) cost benefit analysis.
This isn’t and ...
... these aren’t. And they are worthy of the city.
Ps here’s a good article on the reuse of phone kiosks google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nyti…
PPS there are SO many ways to do water fountains cheaply, simply, elegantly, even beautifully.
