The red telephone box can save Britain

In the old St Pancras graveyard nestled behind King’s Cross, there is a tomb. Engraved with pineapples and an ouroboros, and crowned with a shallow dome, it is the resting place of Sir John Soane, the brilliant architect who designed the Bank of England headquarters. Soane designed it for his wife, who is said to have died of heartbreak in 1815 after their son traduced his father in the newspapers, before his own body was laid to rest there alongside hers. Celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, the first K2 — or “Kiosk no.2” — was designed by another titan of British architecture, Giles Gilbert Scott. In his submission to a contest run by the Royal Fine Art Commission, Scott wanted to design a kiosk that used tradition to close the cultural rupture created by the telephone and networ