February 2022 - The Underground (Again!)

This next three photos give a very different view of the underground, and here the monochrome conversion is really important to emphasise the mechanistic world that the underground (also) is.

There are two ‘silent era’ films that seem to take on this theme: Metropolis (1927) directed by Fritz Lang, and Modern Times (1936) written and directed by Charlie Chaplin. In both these films the industrial machinery is huge, grey, and menacing. And incomprehensible. 

In both the stories, the heroes try to live in that world and (in their very different ways) seek to change it, or to find a way through it. 

The first photo shows something we have all seen a load of times – a long underground platform with the tubular walls carrying adverts or missing panels, showing the skeletons behind them. I suspect that in colour it would seem a lot softer, but of course in reality it isn’t that at all.

The second and third photos are from Westminster Station on the Jubilee Line. The Jubilee designers must have been given a fairly free rein over how they created each station, and there are some terrific pieces of architecture to see. But at Westminster, the designers must have wanted to echo the Barbican’s brutalist philosophy. Goodness knows why because the Barbican is miles away and this is the seat of our UK government. 

Both photos show this in a vivid fashion. The second photo shows people going up the escalator in some huge dystopian world where they are merely tiny pawns in the machinery, while the third photo illustrates (monochrome, not black and white here) the brutalist architecture that typifies the station. In common with most of the Jubilee stations there are vast cathedral like spaces where we are made to feel like small and rather insignificant beings on the way through.

On second thoughts, maybe that is a good thing, hopefully giving a lesson in humility to our politicians who lord it over us.