Public architecture at its best

To catch the Tube from Southwark Station is to enter a world of high drama. The low-slung building unfolds “like an opera in three acts”. The entrance to the sunken rotunda ticket hall is like a descent into a whirlpool, with four flights of concentric steps narrowing into two.

This theatrical analogy by SAVE’s founder Marcus Binney writing in the Times in 1999, is apt. One of the station’s most startling features is an operatic glass screen designed by artist Alexander Beleschenko inspired by Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s famous set for The Magic Flute. The curved wall consists of 630 triangular panes of deep blue glass, secured by stainless-steel spiders to withstand the force of the wind generated by trains in the tunnels.

However the drama is not limited to the station’s exceptional design. Less than 20 years after it opened it found itself under threat – from its owner. Major redevelopment plans were announced by TfL in 2017 that would have destroyed parts of the building including the concourse. SAVE stepped into battle alongside other heritage groups to defend the station and try and protect all 11 stations on the extraordinary Jubilee Line extension (JLE).

The JLE was commissioned by Roland Paoletti in 1990 soon after he completed the metro in Hong Kong. He chose a different architect for each station – a talented group both established and at the beginning of their careers, from Norman Foster to Chris Wilkinson and Jim Eyre. 

It was one of the best examples of public-sector patronage of our time. Again writing in the Times, Marcus Binney described the stations as “the biggest architectural sensation of their kind since the Moscow Underground”.

At Southwark station the architects were MacCormac, Jamieson, Prichard (partner in charge: Richard MacCormac). It won an RIBA bronze medal in 2000 and an award for architectural and engineering excellence in public transport.

SAVE supported a listing application submitted by the Twentieth Century Society in response to the threat of demolition. When this was rejected we coordinated a letter to the Times signed by architectural writers and architects of the JLE stations calling on the Culture Secretary to protect all 11 stations. 

We also convened a panel discussion to highlight the architectural significance and vulnerability of all the stations. Original architects of the station buildings including Ian Ritchie, Michael and Patty Hopkins and Will Alsop took part in the event which was chaired by architecture critic and journalist Jonathan Glancey.

The immediate threat of demolition was successfully headed off. But in 2024 new development plans emerged. We immediately wrote to the Culture Secretary to ask for all 11 stations to be listed, making headlines in the press.