It is impossible to imagine London without the Tube: the beating heart
of the city, the Underground shuttles over a billion passengers each
year below its busy streets and across its leafy suburbs. The
distinctive roundel, colour-coded maps and Johnston typeface have become
design classics, recognised and imitated worldwide.
Opening in 1863, the first sections were operated by steam engines, yet
throughout its long history the Tube has been at the forefront of
contemporary design, pioneering building techniques, electrical trains
and escalators, and business planning. Architects such as Leslie W.
Green and Charles Holden developed a distinctively English version of
Modernism, and the latest stations for the Jubilee line extension,
Overground and Elizabeth line carry this aesthetic forward into the
twenty-first century.
In this major work published in association with Transport for London,
Tube expert Oliver Green traces the history of the Underground,
following its troubles and triumphs, its wartime and peacetime work, and
the essential part it has played in shaping London's economy, geography,
tourism and identity. Specially commissioned photography by Benjamin
Graham (UK Landscape Photographer of the Year 2017) brings the story to
life in vivid portraits of London Underground's stations, tunnels and
trains.
