The invitation had come at the time when Scott had been made a trustee of Sir John Soane's Museum: his design for the competition was in the classical style, but topped with a dome reminiscent of those designed by Soane for his own family mausoleum in St Pancras Old Churchyard, and for the mausoleum for Sir Francis Bourgeois at Dulwich Picture Gallery, both in London. The organisers invited entries from three respected architects and, along with the designs from the Post Office and from The Birmingham Civic Society, the Fine Arts Commission judged the competition and selected the design submitted by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. The Birmingham Civic Society did not give up and, with additional pressure from the Royal Institute of British Architects, the Town Planning Institute and the Royal Academy, the Postmaster General was forced to think again and the result was that the RFAC organised a limited competition. The Birmingham Civic Society then produced a design of its own-in reinforced concrete-but it was informed by the Director of Telephones that the design produced by the Office of the Engineer-in-Chief was preferred as the Architects' Journal commented, "no one with any knowledge of design could feel anything but indignation with the pattern that seems to satisfy the official mind". Because of widespread dissatisfaction with the GPO's design, the Metropolitan Boroughs Joint Standing Committee organised a competition for a superior one in 1923, but the results were disappointing.
The Royal Fine Art Commission was instrumental in the choice of the British standard kiosk. The red telephone box was the result of a competition in 1924 to design a kiosk that would be acceptable to the London Metropolitan Boroughs which had hitherto resisted the Post Office's effort to erect K1 kiosks on their streets. The dome of Sir John Soane's family mausoleum in St Pancras Old Churchyard, London, may have been an inspiration for the K2's design.
BRITISH PHONEBOX SERIES
Although production of the traditional boxes ended with the advent of the KX series in 1985, many still stand in Britain. In 2006 the K2 telephone box was voted one of Britain's top 10 design icons, which included the Mini, Supermarine Spitfire, London tube map, World Wide Web, Concorde and the AEC Routemaster bus. The red phone box is often seen as a British cultural icon throughout the world.
The colour red was chosen to make them easy to spot.įrom 1926 onwards, the fascias of the kiosks were emblazoned with a prominent crown, representing the British government. The red telephone box, a telephone kiosk for a public telephone designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is a familiar sight on the streets of the United Kingdom, Malta, Bermuda and Gibraltar.ĭespite a reduction in their numbers in recent years, the traditional British red telephone kiosk can still be seen in many places throughout the UK, and in current or former British colonies around the world. The Harlaw Road box no longer has its telephone but it has now been given a new lease of life! At Christmas it was used as a gathering point for a Secret Santa service and over lockdown in Spring 2020 it was put to work as a “share box”, where people used it as a sheltered space to drop off items to share such as board games, jigsaws, plant seedlings or bulbs, and many other things.An example of a K6, the most common red telephone box model, photographed in London in 2012. About 20% of these are still in existence. Going into production in 1936 it was the first red telephone box to be used extensively outside of London and by 1940 there were 16,000 of the ‘currant red’ boxes up and down the UK.
The Harlaw Road phone box is a K6 model, designed in 1935 by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of King George V. A group of residents, headed by Sofia Soboleva, decided that they really didn’t want to see this iconic piece of history removed from their street and approached Balerno Village Trust for assistance, which the Trust were more than happy to give. Towards the end of 2019 the last red phone box in Balerno, sited on Harlaw Road had a note from BT put inside stating that it was due to be decommissioned and removed. Most of us will be familiar with the iconic image of the British Telecom Red Phone Box, though as the years pass there are less and less of them about.
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