TRIP TO THE FUTURE

Elegant curves, Brutalist ceilings and even the door handles are exquisite — the Elizabeth line is a triumph not just of engineering, but design. As it opens, Robert Bevan meets its maverick head of architecture, Julian Robinson

YOU may think that London will gain a new Tube line when the Elizabeth line opens today but the man who led its design disagrees. “It’s not the Underground, it’s not the Overground,” says Julian Robinson firmly. “It is its own thing.”

This is not just a proud father talking. The Elizabeth line uses its own full-size trains, is of enormous scale and operates somewhat differently. It may be part of London’s transport system but is its own special creation, like the DLR. Which is why, for instance, the purple roundels say “Elizabeth line” rather than just “Elizabeth” as is the convention on, say, the Bakerloo or Metropolitan. Rather than simply an additional line, it is a different “mode”, Robinson explains. “A conundrum,” he adds.

Robinson, as the Elizabeth line’s head of architecture, has been slotting together all this complexity beneath our feet. He has supervised everything from the overall concept design to the door handles. When in the early 1990s he graduated from Brighton’s school of architecture at 23, his first job was with the company developing the line as Crossrail. He’s now a silver-haired 55 — and gagging for a long beach holiday.

But first, the big day. Ahead of the first phase of opening, TfL staff have been replacing some 86,000 graphic items such as carriage and station maps to show the Elizabeth line’s presence across the system. The imperial, deep purple livery for the line may not be to everybody’s taste (Robinson didn’t choose it) but what of the bigger picture — the architecture of the new stations? Some things are worth the wait — and the Elizabeth line has been one of them.

After a delay of more than three years and billions in inflating costs, there was a worry that we’d have a budget railway, certainly nothing to compare to the 1999 extension of the Jubilee line with its cathedral stations designed by leading architects such as Michael Hopkins and Norman Foster (who also designed the Canary Wharf station on the Elizabeth line). Robinson worked on this too and on the transformation of St Pancras before returning to Crossrail.

So, what’s it like to ride? If you board today at Paddington, one of the central section’s shallower stations, uniquely, daylight filters all the way down to platform level. Take the escalators downwards through the lofty chamber from street to trains and there is sky above you and precise brickwork to your flank, inspired by Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s grand terminal. Elegant ceiling light fittings recessed into concave concrete saucers that recall the clever fusion of the classical and the modern at Charles Holden’s 1930s stations on the Piccadilly. Liverpool Street at the other end of Zone 1 has its own striated drama. These stations are by architects Weston Williamson + Partners and WilkinsonEyre respectively.

Grimshaw Architects, meanwhile, ensured a consistent language of spacious connecting corridors with splayed corners and perforated moulded concrete panels rather than sharp angles and blind corners. Some 30 per cent of passengers will be changing lines onto the Elizabeth and their first experience will be these taller than usual platform tunnels and much longer platforms. Meeting Robinson on the platform at Farringdon, he confesses he doesn’t know if it is true that the Shard would fit along a platform sideways. Still, they are huge at 210m long. So huge that at Liverpool Street and Farringdon, funicular lifts have been installed parallel to the escalators that travel diagonally in order to reduce walking distances between platform and ticket hall. Farringdon is so large that its western entrance is by Farringdon Road and its eastern entrance close to the Barbican where the ticket hall has a Brutalist concrete grid ceiling in homage to the locale.

Navigating the Elizabeth line might feel relatively bland to some when you compare it with, say, the deep green and oxblood tiling of the Edwardian-era

Passengers changing onto the Elizabeth line will experience taller tunnels and much longer platforms

stations like Covent Garden and there are far fewer of the dramatic architectural moments found on the Jubilee line extension. But the calmness brings its own identity and was a deliberate intention. After gliding down the escalators at Farringdon, Robinson points out the way light sources are often invisible and bounce up to wash gently over the curves and the way clutter has been minimised. The concrete is self-fin

ished rather than painted and the whole route is a pale greige. The perforated panels have matting behind to further soften the acoustic. This peace will matter when there are thousands of commuters at rush hour and choosing the wrong exit could send you considerably out of your way. Picking his favourite station would be like naming his favourite child so Robinson refuses the offer. Instead, he says that one of the features he is most proud of are the fully screened platform edges. These might slice the elegant curves of the tunnels in two but they also protect you fro noise and dirt as the trains glide ins. The deceptively complex screens incorporate digital signage, lighting, speakers, smoke ventilation and other techy trickery, freeing up and calming the platforms. There’s nothing else like them anywhere in the world, claims Robinson. The Elizabeth line, he adds, is the first in a new generation of underground railways, decades ahead of, say, the RER lines in Paris. The embodied carbon in its construction will be recouped by greater public transport use over the next eight to 13 years.

There is still some way to go. Bond Street and most suburban stations are yet to open. The latter have not had the same design attention lavished on them, much to the past irritation of some boroughs. What happens next for London’s public transport? Crossrail 2? The Bakerloo line extension? TfL’s finances post-pandemic mean that you shouldn’t hold your breath.

The Crossrail project boasts that as well as delivering dozens of stations, it has created 19 Leicester Squares worth of public space improvements and 17 Shard equivalents in new commercial and residential space above ticket halls and around ventilation shafts.

The most striking example of this is around the new station entrances and Centrepoint at TCR, which is far more pedestrian-friendly than it was but still feels grey and soulless. The brassy new buildings are superficial compared with the quality of the Elizabeth line beneath that they helped fund.

“I couldn’t possibly comment!” laughs Robinson. If he could wave a magic wand it would be a wish that “London could be a bit more civic in its public architecture. We need to get back to thinking long term.” Something to think about as you step towards the curves of escalator shafts that bloom out towards you like the bell of a flower, welcoming you down into Elizabeth line world.

Farringdon’s eastern entrance has a Brutalist concrete grid ceiling in homage to the nearby Barbican