Charles Holden
Charles Henry Holden (1875–1960), architect.
Post-WWI Holden was in practice as Adams, Holden, and Pearson. The broad aims of the work he then carried out for the London Underground were to help make it a more coherent system of public transport and in the name of modernity.
Mid-1920s Holden designed façades for stations on the Northern Line extension from Clapham South to Morden
1926-9 Designed the headquarters of the London Underground, 55 Broadway.
1930s following a short study tour of transport architecture in northern Europe, Holden designed complete stations at either end of the Piccadilly Line: flat-roofed structures in brick and concrete - a prime example being that at Arnos Grove (1932).
He also designed equipment and furniture, working towards a coherent visual identity for the underground.
1931 Holden was commissioned to design the University of London's central building in Bloomsbury. The The initial design was too costly; in 1932 Holden reduced it to its southern part, which forms the present Senate House, plus individual buildings placed around the edge of the site to the north.
Parts of his scheme to the north were completed after the Second World War, with buildings for Birkbeck College, the students' union, the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the Warburg Institute.
See Also
Sources of Information
- Biography of Charles Henry Holden, ODNB