On the eve of Tottenham Court Road Tube Station's demise (it is being redeveloped into one of the Major Crossrail Stations), I have made this photo tour of the Mosaics that alot of its interior is covered with, designed by Eduardo Paolozzi's Munich studio in three phases in the 1980s. These mosaics have graced my journeys through this station for the past 10 years, and together with the mind-blowing tiling of the tunnels, has added an unintrusively jubilant, and suitably superficial edge to the dowdy patina and standard spaces of this otherwise unremarkable station.
Entrance from Tottenham Court Road
The inside of all that is left of the whole block on the south side of St Giles' Circus (going down to the ticket hall) that used to contain the Astoria, Metro and the Ghetto, as well as that staple of early saturday morning Doners and fish n' chips, Dionysus.
The entrance to the descent of the three escalators from the tiny, low ticket hall is framed by this double arcade of bright primary patterns, through which you enter the commute home as if going into some sort of flamboyant, underground basilica.
The Central Line Mosaics, completed in 1982, are all candy-coloured exuberance, as if the mosaic artists had been weaving a tribal fabric for the kingdom of Soho and Bloomsbury above, pouncing out of the walls like banners in a parade.
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