So if highways (and probably airports) are not likely to be the symbols of a more optimistic and practical future of travel (see below), what is?
According to Newsweek, this:
The new high-speed station at Liège in Belgium, by architect and engineer
Santiago Calatrava, ranks as a destination in itself, with its vast, swooping canopy of glass—measuring 25 meters high by 200 meters long—covering the center section of the platforms. The symmetrical design dispenses altogether with the idea of a conventional façade, opening up the building for admiration from all sides.
“After a half century of decline, the train station is back in fashion. If the airport represented glamour and speed for the postwar traveler, the megastation is the symbol of a new age of urban renewal and planet-friendly travel.”
Here’s another: “Beijing South, completed last year, is bold, airy, and spacious enough to fit a jumbo jet between the columns that support the central hall. And it is designed to accommodate China-size crowds increasingly lured by the comfort and efficiency of high-speed rail travel: by 2030 the station is expected to handle 105 million passengers a year, 50 percent more than the total for Heathrow, the world’s busiest international airport.”
Of course, here in B.C. our money is going into roads and airports. Because, as we know, there will never be a shortage of cheap energy or land.
But maybe we might give some thought to an alternative scenario, and imagine what a spectacular station would look like at Surrey City Centre, the northern terminus of a Cascadian fast-rail link from Seattle and Portland.
A station for Cascades would have to be near Scott Road.
There’d be land for that down there too.
The scale of this station is immense – 200m long – that’s as long as Shangri-La is tall.
I would guess that the structure would be bigger than GM Place in scale.
I doubt you’d ever see anything that massive in Vancouver – especially since you would have to destroy Pacific Central Station or the CP Station – both heritage structures – not to mention consolidating the land.
(Not sure what station was in Liege before this station?)
Some good points raised in that post. Will be back to check for more.
At first glance this looks completely out of scale with the nearby rowhouses. Do you know anything about the setting. An unfortunate aspect of this new turn toward rail architecture is that it has the potential to place out-sized stations in the fine-grained parts of cities where rail lines run. I hope architects don’t try to translate airport form to train station form, because while airports sit in the middle of vast open spaces, train staions often sit in dense urban centers.
I think a station could be fit into the existing space that is taken by the Pacific central with a expanded building behind that building. I think its worth remebering that many of Chinas citys have populations 6 times the size of our region so the crowds here would not be as large. I think for this reason a smaller station would work just fine. Theres also the land that is open thats supposedly for St. Pauls hospital in the future we could alway possibly aquire that as well which would allow for even more space to build a building such as this. Of course this could just be only my own dream. Lol!
Profound articles & Wonderful a site….