Station building
Encyclopedia
A station building, also known as a head house, is the main building of a passenger train station
Train station
A train station, also called a railroad station or railway station and often shortened to just station,"Station" is commonly understood to mean "train station" unless otherwise qualified. This is evident from dictionary entries e.g...

. It is typically used principally to provide services to passengers.

A station building is not to be confused with the station itself. Whereas the latter is the whole facility giving passenger access to trains at a particular location (and includes the tracks
Rail tracks
The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...

, platforms
Railway platform
A railway platform is a section of pathway, alongside rail tracks at a train station, metro station or tram stop, at which passengers may board or alight from trains or trams. Almost all stations for rail transport have some form of platforms, with larger stations having multiple platforms...

, and often also, eg, a subway
Subway (underpass)
In England and Wales, the Republic of Ireland, Hong Kong and some Commonwealth countries , the term subway normally refers to a specially constructed underpass for pedestrians and/or cyclists beneath a road or railway, allowing them to reach the other side in safety.The term is also used in the...

, train shed
Train shed
A train shed is an adjacent building to a railway station where the tracks and platforms are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof...

, etc), a station building is a specific well-defined element of the station of which it forms part.

Normally, a station building will be of adequate size for the type of service that is to be performed. It may range from a simple single-storey building with limited services to passengers to a large building with many indoor spaces providing many services. Some station buildings are of monumental proportions and styles. Both in the past and in recent times, especially when constructed for a modern high speed rail network, a station building may even be a true masterpiece of architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

.

A typical station building will have a side entrance hall off the road or square where the station is located. Near the entrance will be a ticket counter, ticket machines, or both. There will also be one or more waiting rooms, often divided by class, and equipped with seats and luggage stands. From the waiting rooms, there will usually be direct access to rail passenger services. Medium to large size station buildings will often also have offices for rail staff involved in the management and operation of trains.

Creation of the form

Several decades were needed to find a formula for station building architecture that, like churches and town halls, would be easily recognizable in the urban space.

The first station buildings gave no special emphasis to their function, being essentially a variation on the house or office building. So, for example, it is difficult to identify the function of the station building in the original Manchester terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway
Liverpool and Manchester Railway
The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by steam locomotives. The line opened on 15 September 1830 and ran between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in North...

, or in the two railway stations in Vienna shown below, although they have been given the characteristics of a public building.

Often the earliest station buildings were so modest that the main visible element of the station was the train shed (eg, the first station in Mannheim
Mannheim
Mannheim is a city in southwestern Germany. With about 315,000 inhabitants, Mannheim is the second-largest city in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, following the capital city of Stuttgart....

).

The Vienna Station in Warsaw, Poland (1846), was one of the early, somewhat naive attempts to demonstrate its purpose. An example of a design technique soon to be dubbed architecture parlante
Architecture parlante
The phrase architecture parlante refers to the concept of buildings that explain their own function or identity.The phrase was originally associated with Claude Nicolas Ledoux, and was extended to other Paris-trained architects of the Revolutionary period, Étienne-Louis Boullée, and Jean-Jacques...

, it was shaped so as to resemble a pair of locomotives. The building was, however, a "closed shop". Although there was space between the building and the surrounding streets, there was no architectural motif leading to any large air space penetration into the rooms inside.





Some early station building design teams tried to develop representative characteristics. Initially, this was by use of traditional architectural symbols, primarily related to the form of a "gate", such as a portico
Portico
A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...

, a triumphal arch
Triumphal arch
A triumphal arch is a monumental structure in the shape of an archway with one or more arched passageways, often designed to span a road. In its simplest form a triumphal arch consists of two massive piers connected by an arch, crowned with a flat entablature or attic on which a statue might be...

 or Propylaea
Propylaea
A Propylaea, Propylea or Propylaia is any monumental gateway based on the original Propylaea that serves as the entrance to the Acropolis in Athens...

. But none of them (except perhaps the triumphal arch) have proved to be particularly suitable for expression of specific railway station functions.





One of the early ideas was to form the station building porticos to highlight the driveway and enlarge the scale of the dominant element of the facade. This motif is already present in the Newcastle Central station building
Newcastle railway station
Newcastle railway station , is the mainline station of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England and is a principal stop on the East Coast Main Line. It opened in 1850 and is a Grade I listed building...

 (1850), then eagerly used in other stations in the UK. It became an even more prominent motif in the twentieth century, shaping the facade of the great railway station Milano Centrale.

In UK stations, where - thanks to constant movement of trains - the exchange of passengers takes place rapidly, the practice is not to have large station buildings. To some extent, the railway hotel buildings (or sometimes railway board offices) serve part of the station's function. These structures do not reveal, however, many features of "railway stations". The one feature that can be found in many of them, worldwide, is a canopy over the driveway, usually made of iron (eg part of the former London Victoria LBSCR station).

The first two images in the following gallery are examples of the use of arcade
Arcade (architecture)
An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....

s (shelters) fitted to through station buildings. In their case, the arcade not only accentuates the station's public function, but also the complex's expansive, symmetrical shape.





Among the attributes of the station, it is difficult to identify an element more appropriate than the station clock. It can be placed not only inside the station building, but also as a distinctive feature of the building's facade.

The modest (but smart) facade of Bari Centrale
Bari Centrale railway station
Bari Centrale is the main railway station of the Italian city of Bari, capital of Apulia. It is one of the most important "FS" stations of Italy.-History:The station was first built in 1864 and between 1865 and 1906 5 more platforms were added...

 has an arcade and arcaded ground floor as elements determining its function, and a clock is placed on the axis in a decorative cartouche. The station facade in Przemyśl
Przemysl
Przemyśl is a city in south-eastern Poland with 66,756 inhabitants, as of June 2009. In 1999, it became part of the Podkarpackie Voivodeship; it was previously the capital of Przemyśl Voivodeship....

, Galicia (see gallery right), features a similar cartouche clock - but also more clearly emphasizes the large square reception hall, contained in the middle risalit
Risalit
A risalit, from the Italian risalto for "projection", is a German term which refers to a part of a building that juts out, usually over the full height of the building. In English the French term avant-corps is sometimes used. It is common in façades in the baroque period.A corner risalit is where...

, which features large windows.

In countries not confined to the classical architectural tradition, station building designers soon began to use the theme of the clock tower, taken over from the town hall or church. This theme sometimes served more utilitarian purposes - there were also some water tower
Water tower
A water tower or elevated water tower is a large elevated drinking water storage container constructed to hold a water supply at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system....

s. The clock tower become particularly popular at the turn of the twentieth century. Along with a covered driveway, it may be a distinguishing characteristic of railway station buildings. A good example of the use of the clock tower, modelled on the town hall, is the Gdańsk Główny station building in Poland (see photo at right).




Maturity

Both the latter two examples from the above gallery, as well as the Gdańsk railway station, demonstrate the characteristic features of the station building in a mature railway station architecture. Illustrated are the elevations and the large building volumes, which had both indoor platforms and - increasingly - a reception hall. There are many examples in which the interpenetration of interior and exterior space is thus a guiding principle for identifying the function of stations.

This principle is revealed in the earliest major stations in which train halls were highlighted. The solution was pioneered at Paris Gare de Strasbourg (later called the Gare de l'Est
Gare de Paris-Est
is one of the six large SNCF termini in Paris. It is in the 10th arrondissement, not far from the Gare du Nord, facing the Boulevard de Strasbourg, part of the north-south axis of Paris created by Baron Haussmann...

) of 1849. A more modern example, and one readily repeated, is the first permanent station in Munich
München Hauptbahnhof
Munich Central Station is the main railway station of the city of Munich in Germany. It is one of the three long distance train stations in Munich, the others being München-Pasing and München Ost. The station sees about 350,000 passengers a day, which puts it on par with other large stations in...

 (demonstrating more universal forms of the Italian Renaissance instead of neo romanticism).

A similarly attractive model was the Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin, opened in 1871, which used the triumphal arch motif as part of its facade (eg the pattern was repeated at the Budapest Keleti station).

At a later stage of development, ticket halls were introduced. At the important Paris-Nord station, platforms extended inside the hall right up to the facade. In Bremen and Roubaix, a reception hall was created to occupy the whole height of the building - and appropriately it was stressed in the station facade. These stations are also examples of structures that managed to achieve high consistency between the building forms of the reception hall and the platforms. Dichotomy between the platforms and the station building is an issue that is not without difficulties.





By contrast, British station architecture largely rejected this path of development: buildings that correspond to European trends are very scarce. One of the important stations of the British Empire, the Victoria Terminus in Bombay (now Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus
Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus
The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus , is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and historic railway station in Mumbai which serves as the headquarters of the Central Railways. Situated in the Bori Bunder area of Mumbai, it was built as a new railway station on the location of the Bori Bunder Station in 1887...

), is a very impressive neo-Gothic building, crowned by a cupola, a feature often associated with railway architecture. The building also remains completely autonomous from the large hall of the platforms located on the side.

Over time, growing volumes of traffic prompted the construction of the railway stations of increasing scale. More and more stations also satisfied the ambitions of the city, railway boards, and countries whose railways have had to shape an appropriate image of the country.

At the turn of the century, one could even speak of a certain megalomania, manifested in the deliberate use of architectural forms which give large and high spaces, with or without a small association with the great architecture of imperial Rome. Architects building many American Union Stations deliberately alluded to the ancient baths (eg, New York train stations, Union Station in Chicago). In Europe, perhaps the best example of the megalomania of the railway station is Milano Centrale.





From the now shunned Stalinist architectural tradition, there were also megalomanic stations in the USSR, which had to meet the objectives of "Socialist Realism." During this period, Stalinist architecture was rooted in historical forms, not adopting trends of modernism.

The clock tower, transformed into a spire topped with a red star, is probably the most characteristic motif of larger Soviet stations. External decoration often tried to portray the traditional national forms, up to the Russian Renaissance. Kharkiv railway station, however, presents an eclectic design linking it with the classical and baroque motifs. The era was closed by the Finlyandsky Rail Terminal in St. Petersburg (completed 1960), which is a mixture of social realism and modernism.

Further west, in Poland, Socialist Realist architecture is represented in Gdynia Główna, amongst others.




Small stations

Provincial stations have been shaped in many ways and have presented themselves in a variety of stylistic forms. Usually, however, the form reflects the popularity of various styles in different countries and eras.

There are many forms of the romantic in Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, referring to the dominant styles of the classical tradition. In all countries with station buildings, there is also resort to local architectural forms.




Other elements of station architecture

Railway station architecture is not just the architecture of the station building. It includes the design of separate platforms and canopies, or the train shed
Train shed
A train shed is an adjacent building to a railway station where the tracks and platforms are covered by a roof. It is also known as an overall roof...

 (ie an the overall canopy for the platforms and tracks), if any. Also, shelters can impart the characteristic face of the station and be more than a utilitarian form of construction.

Architects also create railway station towers, and buildings and equipment associated with the movement of trains: control rooms, and even signals, sometimes grouped together on the platforms over the tracks. The continued existence of these objects, especially the control room, is sometimes at risk when traffic safety technologies are updated.




Books

A bibliography of the history and design of railway stations could be very extensive. In almost all countries where there is a railway system, at least one book has been published on the national fusion of architecture around the railway station.

Synthesis of trans-national literature (selection): (also (1957). London: Architectural Press)

National and regional synthesis (selection): ISBN 3-344-00067-5, ISBN 3-344-00267-8, ISBN 3-344-71029-X

External links



The lead section of this article is based upon a translation of the Italian language version as at January 2011. The rest of the article is based upon a translation of part of the Polish language version, and is currently a work in progress.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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