Back in February we wrote about the danger facing Eduardo Paolozzi’s mosaics which have adorned the walls of London’s Tottenham Court Road tube station. The mosaics, at least a few of them, had to come down due to reconstruction efforts in the station.
It wasn’t a total tragedy; the station removed only about 5 percent of the work in the process. It was a shame, though, that we lost his iconic murals above the escalator arches.
This week it was announced that these mosaics were preserved. They’ll be sent off to Scotland. The good news comes to us from the London Evening Standard:
Colourful mosaics welcoming visitors to Tottenham Court Road station for more than 30 years are to be restored and put on display in Scotland, it can be revealed today. Eduardo Paolozzi’s murals above three escalator arches – which campaigners said were integral to the complete set of mosaics throughout the station – were stripped as part of a £400 million central London station’s redevelopment for the Crossrail programme.
Transport for London announced today they will be taken to Paolozzi’s native Edinburgh for restoration by students at the Edinburgh College of Art before going on public display.
TfL said the majority of Paolozzi’s other mosaics inside Tottenham Court Road station, notably those on the Central Line and Northern Line platforms, have been cleaned and repaired and will remain in situ.
A large mural at the Oxford Street entrance will be remounted elsewhere in the newly upgraded station, which is due for completion in 2018.
The complete set of mosaics, unveiled in 1984, comprised 1,000 squares metres.
TfL said “around 95 per cent of the mosaics at the station are being retained in their original locations”.
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This is good news, isn’t it?!
wonderful news that they are not ‘lost to the hammer’ but will be restored in edinburg, Scotland.