Should the Euston Arch be rebuilt?

[editor]

You cant really drive through the Euston Arch....

Good start, IMO.

 

[toblerone3]

Good start, IMO.

Disfunctional arches are not good things to build an area around look at Marble Arch. What a mess!

 

[teuchter]

Thanks for this Teuchter. I love 1960s promotional material. Something so naive but at the same time hopeful about it.

I wonder what happened to the upstairs "Superloo" complete with baths?

I'd be really interested to see some pictures of the station soon after it opened. Especially the concourse area before becoming cluttered up with Tie Rack kiosks and all the other stuff that's in there now.

Didn't have much luck finding photos on the web so far though.

 

[teuchter]

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=289449

thread merge?

 

[marty21]

Now if only the London Forum thread on the Euston Arch, shamefully destroyed by philistine moderators during the great thread cull of 2005 could be similarly restored to its former glory.

did that up in the river as well?

 

[Crispy]

threads merged then. hmmm. should it go in Transport or London?

 

[teuchter]

threads merged then. hmmm. should it go in Transport or London?

It's at moments like this that I am glad I am not a mod and expected to make such decisions.

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

I would say London on the grounds it is about archtecture not actually transport logistics.

 

[lang rabbie]

[pedant]
As a paid up founder member of the Alexander "Greek" Thomson Society of Glasgow, can I stress that I voted "yes" - even though I know full well that a Propylaeum is not an arch.

That is why my thread in the London Forum had "Euston Arch" in quotation marks.
[/pedant]

 

[Crispy]

I'll see your Propylaeum and raise you an Aedicule.

 

[lang rabbie]

If they do rebuild it everyone will, of course, cease being interested in it. People whinged for years about bringing the temple bar back to the city. Now it is back as part of the neo-Carolean Paternoster square development it is ignored by everyone.

Up to a point - the problem is that the "neo-Carolean" structures either side of Temple Bar are presumably so called as "timid designs designed to keep Prince Charles quiet" but they are actually bloody huge brutes of buildings which dwarf Temple Bar.

The situation at Euston is potentially different, as I think I'm right in saying that Euston Square is a protected square under the London Squares Act (the sale and building over of the bits of the square formerly on the south side of Euston Road was one of the scandals that led to the passing of the Act, however sedate the buildings on that side, including Friends Meeting House, now look!)

The question is can you redesign Euston Square and the forecourt to Euston Station, including a busy bus station, to provide an appropriate setting for the "Euston Arch" - which used to be located some 200 metres to the north.

I think you can, but I don't think the proposal in that slick night-time graphic of putting it slap bang on the Euston Road is the best solution.

The LNWR war memorial should probably be moved as well to allow a complete redesign of the square.

 

[teuchter]

[pedant]
As a paid up founder member of the Alexander "Greek" Thomson Society of Glasgow,

Do you know this man?

 

[teuchter]

I really don't see that the Euston Arch/Propylaeum has any great aesthetic merit in itself.

If it was surviving and the question were to knock it down or not, then maybe I'd be in favour of keeping it as a historical curiosity. But if I have to consider it on its own merits as a design, I can't say it's worth making a facsimile of. Especially now that it would have little meaningful relevance to the space around it.

(And I say this as a Greek Thomson admirer, by the way.)

 

[lang rabbie]

Do you know this man?

I never met Gavin Stamp in the years when he was Glasgow based

[complete thread derail] Bizarrely, the last time I saw Gavin was when various assembled worthies of the Victorian Society turned up unannounced at Henry Tate Mews, Streatham Common to get into a Streatham Society guided tour of the former Park Hill (the converted mansion which contains the ballroom that was the original home of the Tate collection) after an afternoon visiting the Victorian churches of Norwood.

 

[toblerone3]

There's something polemical about the arch's symbolism.

Perhaps it was connected with the triumphal entry of the railway into London, but there it is slapbang on the Euston Road which is triumphal entry of the road into London. At this point in London the sense of road is more powerful than the sense of rail.

Perhaps the arch should be redesigned and re-aligned so that it is over the road.

 

[lang rabbie]

I really don't see that the Euston Arch/Propylaeum has any great aesthetic merit in itself.

"Twas heretic, damnable error!"

 

[Crispy]

Perhaps the arch should be redesigned and re-aligned so that it is over the road.

That makes me but it would totally block the road

 

[Azrael]

If they d do rebuild it everyone will, of course, cease being interested in it. People whinged for years about bringing the temple bar back to the city. Noe it is back as part of the neo-Carolean Paternoster square development it is ignored by everyone.

Not so: I made it a point to go and have a look, and a lovely job they made of it.

I enthusiastically support the reconstruction of the Euston Arch, with as many original stones as can be salvaged. Its demolition has to be a contender for worst act of architectural vandalism in England of the 20th century. I'd like them to rebuild the ticket-hall in the original style while they're at it. They won't, of course, but the arch might rise again.

 

[teuchter]

"Twas heretic, damnable error!"

Convert me, then!


Just another propylaeum if you ask me. The only thing that particularly distinguishes is from the zillions of others there must be standing about the place around the globe is the fact that it had "Euston" written on it. Nothing particularly original or exceptionally beautiful about it.

In my ever so humble opinion.

 

[toblerone3]

There was a point behind my flippant suggestion that the Euston Arch should be over the road and not at right angles to it. Any self respecting arch or gateway should be leading to something and have a vista through to something. To have an arch stranded as a powerless onlooker as the traffic rushes past it on the Euston Road is silly. Look at the difference in alignments in the two pictures below. North-South alignment or East-West alignment you cant have it both ways!

 

[teuchter]

There was a point behind my flippant suggestion that the Euston Arch should be over the road and not at right angles to it. Any self respecting arch or gateway should be leading to something and have a vista through to something. To have an arch stranded as a powerless onlooker as the traffic rushes past it on the Euston Road is silly. Look at the difference in alignments in the two pictures below. North-South alignment or East-West alignment you cant have it both ways!

Well - originally it led to Euston Station. So Euston Road would always have rushed past it - but you would have passed through it to enter the station. So the alignment in the photomontage is essentially the same.

Here is another view. Presumably this is looking from Euston Road, into the station forecourt the other side of the arch. It makes rather more sense here than in the proposed arrangement, because it is part of a screen and you would actually pass through it to get into the station. As far as I can see, in the proposed reconstruction it would be purely symbolic, standing there on its own with no-one really going through it. Which is one of the reasons reinstating it seems a little pointless to me.

 

[Azrael]

As far as I can see, in the proposed reconstruction it would be purely symbolic, standing there on its own with no-one really going through it.

This could easily be remedied by knocking up a few nice ornate fences either side of the arch. If that isn't practical, rebuild it anyway, as a giant two-fingers to wreckers past and present, and to serve as a wonderful, symbolic, folly.

 

[lang rabbie]

Well - originally it led to Euston Station. So Euston Road would always have rushed past it - but you would have passed through it to enter the station. So the alignment in the photomontage is essentially the same.

Here is another view. Presumably this is looking from Euston Road, into the station forecourt the other side of the arch. It makes rather more sense here than in the proposed arrangement, because it is part of a screen and you would actually pass through it to get into the station. As far as I can see, in the proposed reconstruction it would be purely symbolic, standing there on its own with no-one really going through it. Which is one of the reasons reinstating it seems a little pointless to me.

Which is precisely what I'm saying - don't try and squeeze the rebuild between the war memorial lodges on the Euston Road. Come up with a proper plan to redevelop the depressingly black late 70s Seifert office blocks and put the "Euston Arch" back dominating the north side of Euston Square as the main pedestrian approach to the railway station with a minimalist glass bus station on either side.

 

[toblerone3]

Which is precisely what I'm saying - don't try and squeeze the rebuild between the war memorial lodges on the Euston Road. Come up with a proper plan to redevelop the depressingly black late 70s Seifert office blocks and put the "Euston Arch" back dominating the north side of Euston Square as the main pedestrian approach to the railway station with a minimalist glass bus station on either side.

Where would the pedestrians come from?

 

[teuchter]

Which is precisely what I'm saying - don't try and squeeze the rebuild between the war memorial lodges on the Euston Road. Come up with a proper plan to redevelop the depressingly black late 70s Seifert office blocks and put the "Euston Arch" back dominating the north side of Euston Square as the main pedestrian approach to the railway station with a minimalist glass bus station on either side.

Or simply redesign Euston square with the aim of making it better, and realise that reinstating the Euston Arch is not necessary, or even particularly helpful, in achieving this.

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

i like it

i think it's big and bold and stone

i like big stone stuff especially stuff like this

 

[Chz]

How is it an "arch"?

And while tearing it down in the first place was a travesty, it doesn't really belong where they're proposing it now either. It did its job for history in kickstarting the preservation movement - let it rest.

 

[Azrael]

It did its job for history in kickstarting the preservation movement - let it rest.

Oh no, it must rise again, phoenix-style, if only to announce a major symbolic victory over the wreckers. In exactly the same place, and exactly the same proportions, with "EUSTON" in big gold letters across the top.

 

[lang rabbie]

Where would the pedestrians come from?

(i) the bus station

(ii) south of Euston Road - have you never seen the number of people who take their lives in their hands every day trying to get across despite the appalling lack of proper pedestrian phases on any of the sets of lights.

 

[toblerone3]

(i) the bus station

(ii) south of Euston Road - have you never seen the number of people who take their lives in their hands every day trying to get across despite the appalling lack of proper pedestrian phases on any of the sets of lights.

But if I understand your idea correctly you would place the bus station to the side of the 'Arch'. As for people coming from south of the Euston Road that would be mainly from Euston Square tube which is on the pisspoor circle line ffs and is 300 metres down the Euston Road. I mean completely walkable but a very poor interchange.