The Red Telephone Box: A British Icon’s Fight for Survival
紅色電話亭：英倫精神的象徵
Owain McKimm
11/15
Like Big Ben, beefeaters, and the red double-decker bus, the red telephone box has become an iconic symbol of British culture. Indeed, it’s a common sight in London to see tourists eagerly forming lines on the street just to snap a photo beside one! These unique structures have been serving Britain’s public for over a century—though today they are in real danger of biting the dust.
The famous design originated in the 1920s when the British Post Office organized a competition to create a new public telephone box. Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, a well-known architect of the age, carried the day with his design inspired by classical architecture. His boxes were made from iron, featured a domed roof and large windows, and were painted bright red to ensure that they’d be easy to spot on busy city streets. However, due to their size and weight, Scott’s early models were expensive to produce and weren’t widely seen outside London.
So in 1935, Scott modified his design, making it a little smaller in size and much lighter. And over the next few decades, tens of thousands of these boxes were set up all over the country.
就像大笨鐘、倫敦塔的衛兵和紅色雙層巴士一樣，紅色電話亭已成為英國文化的標誌性象徵。確實，在倫敦很常看見遊客熱切地在街上排隊，就只為了在電話亭旁邊拍張照片！這些獨特的建築物已為英國大眾服務了一個多世紀——雖然今天它們真的有消失的危險。
這個著名的設計源自一九二○年代，當時英國郵政總局籌辦了一個設計新公共電話亭的競賽。賈爾斯．吉伯特．史考特爵士是當時著名的建築師，他以古典建築為靈感的設計脫穎而出。他的電話亭用鐵製成，有圓頂屋頂和大窗戶，並被漆成鮮紅色，以確保在繁忙的城市街道上能容易被看見。然而，由於尺寸和重量的緣故，史考特早期的模型生產成本高昂，並且在倫敦以外的地方並不常見。
因此在一九三五年，史考特修改了他的設計，讓它尺寸小一些、重量也輕許多。在接下來的幾十年裡，成千上萬的電話亭就被設置在全國各地。
11/16
For decades, these telephone boxes did their job, serving as an important means of communication for the people of Britain. With the rise of mobile phones over the last 30 years, though, they have become less and less needed. In 2021, only 21,000 of them remained in use, down from around 100,000 in 1990.
Today, with the number of calls made from them falling dramatically, many of the remaining red phone boxes face removal too. However, their cultural significance has led to efforts to preserve them. The Adopt-a-Kiosk program, run by the phone company that owns the boxes, now allows local organizations to buy a red phone box for the cost of just £1 and put it to a different use. To date, over 6,500 of these old phone boxes have been repurposed as tiny libraries, art galleries, cake shops, first-aid points, and even, in one case, a tiny nightclub!
Thanks to these clever ideas, at least some of Britain’s red phone boxes are now likely to stick around. In spite of changing technology, they will remain a part of British culture, loved by locals and visitors alike, for many years to come.
幾十年來，這些電話亭發揮了作用，作為英國人民重要的通訊工具。然而，隨著過去三十年手機的興起，它們變得越來越不再被需要。二○二一年，只有兩萬一千座電話亭仍在使用，低於一九九○年的大約十萬座。
今天，由於從電話亭撥打的電話量急遽下降，許多剩下的紅色電話亭也面臨拆除。然而，它們的文化意義促使人們想努力保存它們。擁有電話亭的電信公司發起了「認養電話亭」計畫，現在允許當地機構僅以一英鎊的價格購買一座紅色電話亭，並將其作為其他用途。迄今為止，超過六千五百座舊電話亭被重新改造為小型圖書館、藝廊、蛋糕店、急救站，甚至還有一間被改造成迷你夜店！
由於這些聰明的點子，至少一些英國的紅色電話亭現在可能會被留存下來。儘管科技日新月異，它們仍然會是英國文化的一部分，並在未來幾年受到當地居民和遊客的喜愛。
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