Requiem For A Red Box

Cover Type: Hardcover
Book Condition: Fine
Jacket Condition: Fine
Publisher: Pyramid Books Ltd
Publisher Place: London
Publisher Year: 1989
Edition: First Edition

Description: 128 pages. Book and Jacket appear to have hardly been read and are both in Fine condition throughout.

Publishers Description: In 1924 a curious competition took place in which leading architects of the day were asked to design a cast iron Kiosk to house the public telephone. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, designer of among other buildings, Battersea Power Station and Liverpools Anglican Cathedral, won and his design was hailed as a masterpiece, a distillation of the essence of Classicism. When the red box was introduced it was regarded as something of a red peril, a blight on the countryside, but soon it became part of the landscape and the British took it to their hearts.In 1985 British Telecom decided in their wisdom that these boxes were too costly to maintain in the face of decay and vandalism, and they began to remove them and replace them with an assortment of booths and canopies. There was uproar.John Timpson traces in his usual jovial style the decline and fall of the red telephone box in his beautifully designed and produced Requiem for a Red Box. The book is divided into two sections, a history of telephone boxes, followed by a look at their demise and subsequent reincarnation as cocktail bars, shower units, bookcases and even aquaria! Throughout the book the reader will also find a number of overheard telephone conversations tied-in to the amusing and evocative photographs many of which have been specially taken for the book.

ISBN: 9781855100084