Canary Wharf Tube Station

Canary Wharf Tube Station London

Canary Wharf Station, London. — Canary Wharf Station, London

Canary Wharf is a major business centre of gleaming glass and steel high-rises built on former docklands in East London. Its tube station has become an iconic piece of contemporary architecture.

Canary Wharf is served by a station on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) which opened in 1987, but within a few years it became obvious that the station's capacity would soon be reached and exceeded so a solution was to reroute the planned extension of the Jubilee Line of the London Underground to stop at Canary Wharf.

Design

The contract to design the station was awarded to Norman Foster, one of the most prolific of contemporary architects whose buildings can be found throughout the world as well as in his native UK.

He already had experience designing stations for the Bilbao Metro in Spain. Possibly his most recognized building in the UK is the Gherkin in The City.

The station opened in 1999. All that is visible above ground are the two main entrances consisting of huge, curved, glass canopies to the east and west. The "roof" of the station between the entrances is Jubilee Park, the biggest green space in all of Canary Wharf.

These canopies allow natural light to enter the cavernous interior that some have likened to a cathedral.

The vastness of the station was to comfortably handle the expected passenger numbers which now approach 60 million a year.

While the busiest stations on the underground network tend to be in central London and that connect with major railway terminals with multiple tube lines, Canary Wharf is the busiest station on a single line.

Awards & Use As A Location

Canary Wharf Station has won numerous architecture prizes and accolades. It is even well known to the movie-viewing public worldwide.

Danny Boyle's Sci-fi zombie thriller 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later feature scenes shot inside Canary Wharf tube station, and the Star Wars spin-off Rogue One also has some scenes shot here.

The huge escalators at the station. — The huge escalators at the station

The entrance to the station. — The entrance to the station surrounded by office blocks

Access

The Jubilee Line opened in 1979 and is the newest line of the London underground network and runs from Stratford in east London to Stanmore in the north-west of the capital.

The new extension runs between Stratford and Green Park. The stations either side of Canary Wharf are Canada Water and North Greenwich.

Canary Wharf
London E14 5LJ
Tel: 01343 222 1234

The station is convenient for the Museum of London Docklands, part of the Museum of London.