Portal:London transport/Selected articles/45

Arnos Grove is a London Underground station on the Piccadilly line. The station opened in 1932 as part of the first section of the northern extension of the Piccadilly line from Finsbury Park to Cockfosters.

Like the other stations Charles Holden designed for the extension, Arnos Grove was built in a modern European style using brick, glass and reinforced concrete and basic geometric shapes. A circular drum-like ticket hall of brick and glass panels rises from a low single storey structure and is capped by a flat concrete roof. The design was inspired by Gunnar Asplund's design of the Stockholm City Library.

The centre of the ticket hall is occupied by a disused ticket office (a passimeter in London Underground parlance) which houses an exhibition on the station and the line. Like Holden's other stations on the extension, Arnos Grove is a Grade II listed building. The building features as one of the 12 "Great Modern Buildings" profiled in The Guardian during October 2007 and was summarised by architectural critic Jonathan Glancey as "...truly what German art historians would describe as a gesamtkunstwerk, a total and entire work of art." (Full article...)