The Michael Faraday Memorial in Elephant and Castle

Located at Elephant Square in Elephant and Castle, London, the Michael Faraday Memorial serves as a monument to the Victorian scientist Michael Faraday. The stainless steel box-shaped structure was designed by modern movement architect Rodney Gordon in 1959 and built in 1961 on the centre of what was the northern roundabout of the Elephant and Castle gyratory system. It was placed there because Faraday's birthplace is nearby in Newington Butts.

The interior of the construction contains a London Underground electrical substation for the Northern line and Bakerloo line. Rodney Gordon originally designed the box clad in glass, intending the workings of the transformer to be seen. However, the possibility of vandalism prevented this, so the design was changed to a metal casing. While aspects of Gordon's design which explained the connection to Faraday were left out when it was constructed, an inscription in the concrete paving nearby explains that it is the Faraday Memorial.

The monument was given Grade II listed building status in 1996, the same year a new lighting scheme designed by a local schoolgirl was installed. In 2012, this was replaced with a new disco theme by Southwark Council. The structure also gained brief notoriety in popular culture when electronic musician Aphex Twin satirically claimed in a 2001 interview to have bought the structure and lived inside it.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons