LAST STOP Routemasters (Signed) - SOLD OUT
..It is almost bus porn.. (Robert Elms, BBC Radio London)
..a fascinating set of photographs..Critics Choice.. (Time Out London)
..an invaluable account of what some say is the greatest bus on earth..(Art Review)
A design classic and an international symbol of London, the Routemaster bus became
a landmark in itself, a global icon you could ride to work.
Introduced in 1956, the Routemaster was a fixture of the capital’s streets for half a century before its
withdrawal from regular service at the end of 2005 – a decision that outraged thousands of the bus’s
admirers in Britain and around the world. This was no mere item of public transport, they
insisted, but a living part of the city, worthy of appreciation, loyalty, even affection.
Drawn from hundreds of images gathered over the Routemaster’s final eighteen
months of service, Last Stop Routemasters is not an exercise in protest, or even nostalgia,
but a celebration of the unique and dynamic role the bus played in London life.
These vibrant, witty and iconic photographswere mostly taken on the 19 and 38 routes,
running from Finsbury Park in the north and Hackney in the east through the heart of
the West End and on to Knightsbridge and Chelsea.
They pay tribute to the bus’s warm, weighty yet elegant design features, the spontaneous social
interactions catalysed by its trusty conductors and the ever-changing conversation between inside and
outside space allowed by its open back.
It’s in these fluid, organic elements – all absent from the buses that have replaced it -
that Obergfell finds the Routemaster’s soul.
Title:
Last Stop Routemasters
Artist:
Ralf Obergfell
Publisher:
Breedon Books Publishing Co Ltd
Release Date:
1 May 2008
Period covered:
2004-2005
Language:
English
Texts:
Ben Walters, Travis Elborough, Ralf Obergfell
Art Direction & Design:
Magpie Studio
Pages:
192 pp. (4/4 colour)
Illustrations:
170 analogue photographs
Measurements:
23.3 x 2.2 x 23.2 cm (9.17 × 0.87 × 9.13 inches)
Paper:
150 g/m² Silk Satin
Hardcover:
Millboard with dust jacket
Cover Cloth:
180 g/m² Wibalin® book cloth (red)
Printing process:
Offset
ISBN:
978-1-859836101