Going Loco: station projects steam ahead

Trains might have been invented before more technologically advanced jet aircraft, but train travel could soon come to overtake air travel in terms of its appeal. Trains require, more often than not, neither check-in nor security – reducing travel times, especially for shorter distances – no schlepping to out-of-town airports for city-dwellers, and often boast more comfortable interiors. Add to this the rise of high-speed rail, which has seen the creation of glittering new stations or the upgrade of existing ones by high-profile architects.

Take the newly opened Napoli Afragola station near Naples, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, which serves four high-speed intercity lines and connects southern Italian cities Bari and Reggio Calabria to northern Italy and the rest of Europe; 32,700 passengers are expected to use it daily. Ease of movement is key to its design, which links the communities on either side of the railway and minimises walking distances to and from the trains. A concourse above the tracks leads directly to the platforms. Sustainability was another concern, and the station’s dramatic glass, steel and Corian roof incorporates solar panels that reduce energy consumption.

Similarly light-filled is Benthem Crouwel Architects’ upgrade of The Hague Central Station, which anticipates that the building’s number of users will double in the coming decade due to its connection to the high-speed rail line from Amsterdam to Paris. Its 1970s concrete roof has been replaced with a lattice of glass panels that flood the interior with daylight. These open automatically in warm weather to provide ventilation.

Theo Hotz Partner’s design for Vienna’s Central Station also features a striking roof, albeit an elaborately sculptural rather than purely functionalist one. Its zigzagging sections rise and fall gently or steeply, their vertical planes pierced by pale, glossy, diamond-shaped skylights redolent of crystalline structures.

Koen van Velsen Architects also took a considered approach to materials with its new rail and bus station in the Dutch city of Breda. Inspired by old Italian cities, its brickwork in nuanced colours was chosen to echo the style of the established, neighbouring architecture. While some new stations make a statement that contrasts with their settings, others assiduously blend with them.

© Architonic