CONSTRUCTION & STATIONS
The Culture Line
Christina Andersen, art programme director at Crossrail, talks to RTM about the new ‘Culture Line’ being developed throughout London’s new stations.
C
rossrail is already well-known for its emphasis on the local neighbourhoods
it passes through, with clear recognition of environmental and social value, job creation and investment in the public realm.
The project’s latest aim is to make travel a beautiful experience – not just a functional one.
Crossrail’s art programme is developing ‘The Culture Line’ to bring art to the railway. Artwork will be displayed inside, and as part of, the seven central stations that are currently at varying stages of construction.
Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Whitechapel and Canary Wharf will benefit from a range of designs that seek to turn the railway into an emotive and interesting public space.
to develop the idea. A long-list of ten artists was chosen from the gallery’s roster, and was shortlisted by a panel of arts representatives, including the Barbican and the GLA Culture Team.
Following this process, three artists were chosen to develop a proposal for the station, and Spencer Finch was announced as the first artist to work with Crossrail last year.
Andersen said: “We realised it was a really good framework to work by, and made sure they worked very closely with the architect, the station designers as well, so that they became integrated into the station design. Since then we’ve developed relationships with other key galleries, and we look to take this forward with the remaining stations.”
Designed together
In addition to the Lisson, the galleries announced thus far are: White Cube for Bond Street station, Gagosian Gallery for Tottenham Court Road, Sadie Coles HQ for Farringdon, and the Victoria Miro Gallery for Liverpool Street station.
The art programme sits outside of the £14.8bn funding envelope for Crossrail, and the company is looking to attract sponsors to fund the art works. In December 2013 the City of London announced that it would match-fund the programme across all of the stations and in January this year Canary Wharf Group became the first to come on board to sponsor art at Canary Wharf station.
RTM spoke to Christina Andersen, art programme director, about the new ‘line’.
Framework for art
The first station to be piloted is Paddington, where Crossrail worked with Lisson Gallery
112 | rail technology magazine Feb/Mar 14
The
www.crossrailart.co.uk website includes Custom House as the eighth station to benefit, but Crossrail spokesman Hamish McDougall told RTM that Custom House does not currently have funding under the City of London agreement.
The seven artworks will be built at the same time as the new stations, allowing real integration with the architecture of the buildings.
Andersen explained that the artworks will also be permanently integrated into the stations, “which is why collaboration with our architects and engineers is really important for us”.
“They are built to last the lifetime of the station, which is roughly 100 years,” she said.
“We highlight potential opportunities within the station, but we keep it relatively open. Within this brief, we talk about three big ideas: art and architecture, where the artist uses materials that the architects are already planning to use within the station; river of light, where an artist can choose to use digital technologies to develop a proposal; or urban realm, where they can choose things like benches and bins and signage for their artwork.
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