The craftsmanship of the architects turned functional buildings into real masterpieces
The city station today is not just a transport hub —it is the main entrance and an important landmark of the city. Around the World shows unusual train stations in Europe and Asia.
São Bento Station
Porto, Portugal
When guides take tourists to the building of the suburban train station, located in the city center, tourists have little idea why. But once inside, they literally forget to breathe: the lobby is more like a gallery of monumental azulejo tiles – landscapes, scenes of heroic battles and rural life, the history of transport … About 20 thousand tiles covering an area of 551 m² were created more than a hundred years ago by the best Portuguese azulejo artist Jorge Colas.
Atocha Station
Madrid, Spain
The historic building, designed by Alberto Palacio, a student of Gustave Eiffel, was used as a terminal for a hundred years, but after renovation in 1992, it turned into a lobby leading to the new terminals. However, this is not just a lobby, but a luxurious waiting room and a tropical garden at the same time: 7200 plants of 260 species are planted here, there are ponds with goldfish and exotic turtles, as well as a nightclub, shops and cafes.
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Kanazawa Station
Japan
Above the platforms a glass and steel roof, in front of the station the 14m wooden arch of the Tsuzumi Gate with shaped pillars traditional Japanese drums, in front of it is a fountain with a digital clock … It's hard to believe that this is the “main entrance” to the five-hundred-year-old city, which was practically not affected by the bombings of World War II. This is Japan with its new technologies in the context of timeless traditions.
Liègeguillemin Station
Liège, Belgium
The cost of creating another brainchild of Santiago Calatrava amounted to 437 million euros. The station, which opened in 2009, can be called a building without walls: the “flying” undulating roof follows the shape of the surrounding mountains with bends. It is based on 39 steel arches with glass ceilings, which took 32,000 m² of glass.
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Strasbourg Main Station
France
The old station building, built in 1883 by German architects, was hidden in 2007 under a futuristic 6,000 m² glass dome. The structure consists of 16 metal arches and 900 glass panels and weighs 900 tons. The building is equipped with underfloor heating.
Beijing West Station
China
A hieroglyph-shaped multi-level structure built on a scale worthy of the Forbidden City. The station was opened in 1996 and for some time was the largest in Asia (510,000 m²), until it was surpassed by Shanghai Hongqiao Station. Passenger traffic can reach 400 thousand people.
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- Everything is in smoke: 6 key elements of the painting “Gare Saint-Lazare. Arrival of the Train” by Claude Monet
Samara Station
Russia
The height of the new station building in Samara is 101 meters with a spire. The shape of the building resembles a high-tech temple. From the observation deck at the level of 95 meters you can see the city, the Samara and Volga rivers. Inside there is a museum of the Kuibyshev highway, a winter garden and a temple of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God.
Photo: AGE FOTOSTOCK, HEMIS (X2)/LEGION-MEDIA, VIEW STOCK, VLADIMIR SMIRNOV/TASS, Zoonar/Legion Media, Daniel Kalker/DPA/Legion Media
Material published in Vokrug Sveta #10, October 2018
Svyatoslav Zelensky