I love the Tube and I’m currently exploring one of the lines of it with the Bishopsgate Institute. The first week was St John’s Wood, and the station platforms are plain cream except for cheeky little heraldic tiles and snapshots of London by Howard Stabler.
150 great things about the Tube has taken far better photos than I could and has also written about Stabler here.
In fact, twice in one day because I can’t resist: a scrapbook of Instagram pretties: Schiaparelli dresses from @the_corsetedbeauty;
an Evelyn Dunbar sketch from @designfortoday;
an elegant doodle from @garancedore;
marmalade jars and the delightful National Trust home of Standen from phil._.b;
dogs on the beach from @thewomensroomblog
These houses remind me of sugar biscuits with fancy icing. Vienna, June 2017.
An interesting, witty and self-deprecating talk from Michael Bierut about the New York public libraries that don’t look like this.
Well, sort of. This is actually Tweets of the week, as Helen posts @LBFlyawayhome on the Ladybird Books.
The illustrations range from the pretty,
to the of-their-time (I was tickled at how much Charles II and his courtier have faced exactly out of a mid-century illustration of sober lawyers), to the unintentionally amusing
and the completely barmy and opinionated:
At a time when government seems to be relying more on old-fashioned philanthropy to keep services running, rather exert itself to help, I was intrigued to see this building in East London recently.
Passmore Edwards was a philanthropist of the 1890s and 1900s whose other endowments include the library that is now part of the Bush Theatre in West London. In the new century, he endowed this mock Tudor gatehouse to be a place of rest for international sailors staying in London on leave.
Poignantly the project, opened by the Kaiser and Edward VII, fell through when WW1 broke out. But the building remains, and more can be read about it here and here.
I was searching for something else which will feature on the blog soon when I came across the blog Ornamental Passions, dedicated to noticing all those small details on buildings’ windowframes and doormantels, carved plaques and now-baffling statues that London teems with. To my delight, one of the first posts I read shed light on this statue that I often pass in Lincolns Inn Fields.
Beautiful, beautiful things from Tom Raffield, here and via John Lewis and Heal’s.
of Shell. One of the most famous advertising slogans of the 20th century.
Designer, Barnett Freedman. A nice image for transitioning from winter to spring.
New subway, photos January 2017.
