His early buildings were influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, but for most of his career he championed an unadorned style based on simplified forms and massing that was free of what he considered to be unnecessary decorative detailing.

[note 2] While working and studying in Manchester, Holden formed friendships with artist Muirhead Bone and his future brother-in-law Francis Dodd.

[6] Whitman's writings and those of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edward Carpenter were major influences on Holden's life.

[22] His red brick arts and craft façades for the Belgrave Hospital for Children in Kennington, south London (1900–03), were influenced by Philip Webb and Henry Wilson and feature steeply pitched roofs, corner towers and stone window surrounds.

His Tudor Revival façades in bath stone incorporate modernist elements complementing the adjacent Abbey Gate of Bristol Cathedral.

[29] It was described by architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as "free Neo-Tudor" and "extremely pretty" and by Andor Gomme as "one of the great masterpieces of the early Modern Movement".

[27] At Midhurst, West Sussex, Holden designed Tudor-style façades for the Sir Ernest Cassel-funded King Edward VII Sanatorium (1903–06).

[16] For The Law Society he designed (1902–04) a simplified neoclassical extension to the existing Lewis Vulliamy-designed building in Chancery Lane with external sculptures by Charles Pibworth and a panelled arts and crafts interior with carving by William Aumonier and friezes by Conrad Dressler.

"[37] In 1906, Holden won the architectural competition to design a new headquarters for the British Medical Association on the corner of The Strand and Agar Street (now Zimbabwe House).

[note 6] Located at second floor level was a controversial series of 7-foot (2.1 m) tall sculptures representing the development of science and the ages of man by Jacob Epstein.

Subsequently, dedicated to the memory of King Edward VII (died 1910), the extension (1911–12) was built on steeply sloping ground for which Holden designed a linked pair of Portland stone-faced blocks around a courtyard.

He travelled to America in April 1913 and studied the organisation of household and social science departments at American universities in preparation for his design of the Wren-influenced Kings College for Women, Kensington.

In the First World War, Margaret Holden joined the "Friends' Emergency Committee for the Assistance of Germans, Austrians and Hungarians in distress" which helped refugees of those countries stranded in London by the conflict.

[52] Holden described his experience: The country is one vast wilderness, blasted out of recognition where once villages & orchards & fertile land, now tossed about & churned in hopeless disorder with never a landmark as far as the eye can reach & dotted about in the scrub and untidiness of it all are to be seen here & there singly & in groups little white crosses marking the place where men have fallen and been buried.

[63] In 1922, Holden designed the War Memorial Gateway for Clifton College, Bristol, using a combination of limestone and gritstone to match the Gothic style of the school's buildings.

[66] Through his involvement with the Design and Industries Association, Holden met Frank Pick, general manager of the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL).

[69] The designs reflect the simple modernist style he was using in France for the war cemeteries; double-height ticket halls are clad in plain Portland stone framing a glazed screen, each adapted to suit the street corner sites of most of the stations.

[note 11] At Piccadilly Circus, one of the busiest stations on the system, Holden designed (1925–28) a spacious travertine-lined circulating concourse and ticket hall below the roadway of the junction from which banks of escalators gave access to the platforms below.

Above the first floor, the steel-framed building was constructed to a cruciform plan and rises in a series of receding stages to a central clock tower 175 feet (53 m) tall.

Adapting the architectural styles he had seen on the tour, Holden created functional designs composed of simple forms: cylinders, curves and rectangles, built in plain brick, concrete and glass.

The extensions to the west and north-west were over existing routes operated by the District line and required a number of stations to be rebuilt to accommodate additional tracks or to replace original, basic buildings.

[79] In order to handle such a large volume of work, Holden delegated significant design responsibility to his assistants, such as Charles Hutton, who took the lead on Arnos Grove Station.

[83] Holden's designs incorporated sculpture relevant to the local history of a number of stations: Dick Whittington for Highgate,[84] a Roman centurion at Elstree South[85] and an archer for East Finchley.

Making use of the station's air-rights, Holden provided staff office space spanning above the tracks accessed through semi-circular glazed stairways from the platforms.

Post-war austerity measures reduced the quality of the materials used compared with the 1930s stations and the building at Wanstead was adapted from a temporary structure constructed during the line's wartime use as an underground factory.

Pevsner described its style as "strangely semi-traditional, undecided modernism", and summarised: "The design certainly does not possess the vigour and directness of Charles Holden's smaller Underground stations.

"[95] Historian Arnold Whittick described the building as a "static massive pyramid ... obviously designed to last for a thousand years", but thought "the interior is more pleasing than the exterior.

"[96] The onset of the Second World War prevented any further progress on the full scheme, although Adams, Holden & Pearson did design further buildings for the university in the vicinity.

The change in administration ended the proposals, although a new plan prepared in 1947 without Holden's or Enderby's involvement retained some of their ideas including the ring road.

Throw off your mantle of deceits; your cornices, pilasters, mouldings, swags, scrolls; behind them all, behind your dignified proportions, your picturesque groupings, your arts and crafts prettinesses and exaggerated techniques; behind and beyond them all hides the one I love.