British Library
St Pancras station
King’s Cross Station
319—321 Gray’s Inn Road
Road traffic signs
Cent. London T&E Hosp.
Royal Free Hospital
Parsons’ Library
R L Homœopathic Hospital
British Monomarks
Faraday House
Central Saint Martins
Pharmaceutical Soc.
British Museum
Dairy Supply Co.
Smith’s umbrellas
Lavers & Barraud
Underground station
27–29 Long Acre
Street names
The Coliseum
Pedestrian signage
St Martin’s Schools
St Martin’s/Fields
Sainsbury Wing
Further reading
Background
Credits
Image bibliography
Exploiting context
01
04

Faraday House 48 Old Gloucester Street

This carved, raised, building name shows one of the more playful approaches to our subject, some letters being reduced to abstraction making them legible as letters only when seen in the context of the rest. The letters are carved from the blocks making up the wall and until 1995 were self-coloured. Unpainted, they were emphatically part of the wall, a fact disguised by colour.

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On the building
The railings

All stills for Faraday House

On the building

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The lettering was painted in 1995 destroying the sense that it is part of the building.

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The lettering photographed before painting in 1995. ’Ancient lights’ refers to a building’s right to light within planning law.

The railings

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An unexpected suprise: in front of the building, the initials FH are part of the railings and easy to miss.

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An unexpected suprise: in front of the building, the initials FH are part of the railings and easy to miss.