Demolished! 11 Beautiful Train Stations that Fell to the Wrecking Ball

[palindrome]

http://www.infrastructurist.com/200...rain-stations-that-fell-to-the-wrecking-ball/

AN extremely interesting read. A dam shame that we'll probably never be able to recreate them.

 

[Ron Newman]

But a bit inaccurate with respect to Boston, and some of the commenters suggest that they got Chicago wrong as well. Here's the comment I left there:

------------------------
I need to make some minor correction regarding Boston North Station.

When our first North Station was demolished, it was replaced by a building that contained the first Boston Garden and second North Station. That in turn was demolished and replaced by the current building that contains the second Boston Garden and the third North Station.

In both of the Garden/North Station combined buildings, the railroad station is at street level, not underground. What?s underground at the current North Station is the MBTA station, serving Green Line streetcars and Orange Line subway trains.

 

[KentXie]

Wasn't the old Sullivan Station also an architectural feat? I remember seeing a picture online but I can't seem to find it.

Here's the interior:

 

[Merper]

anyone care to put together a list of best current stations?

 

[Joe_Schmoe]

You could do a thread of just great destroyed Boston train stations. HH Richardson alone designed many small commuter stations that have mostly been destroyed.

Here's a site that has a list of Great Train Stations:
http://www.trainweb.org/rshs/great_railroad_stations.htm

 

[unterbau]

i found out about Eliel Saarinen's Helsinki Central Stationa few weeks ago and I fell in love with it:

fortunately it is not being threatened by demolition

 

[palindrome]

I would love to have seen that building before the copper greened (calcified? is that the word?)

 

[FrankG]

I would love to have seen that building before the copper greened (calcified? is that the word?)

"Patinated"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patina

 

[Patrick]

http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/06/25/6-more-great-train-stations-lost-to-the-wrecking-ball/

 

[unterbau]

Again, not slated for demolishment, but you have to see this station. Absurd is the only description I can think of. Its gaudiness would put most museums to shame.

interior shots and info on refurbishment:
http://www.designboom.com/.../new-milan-central-railway-station.html

 

[commuter guy]

The design of Milan's station is in part the result of Mussolini's influence. He pushed for a monumental design.

 

[unterbau]

The level of ornateness feels like borderline parody. It's a fantastic building, but it looks like something dreamed up by Hollywood. This is what Michael Bay would build if he were an architect in the 1930s

edit: I think it's the Pegasus gargoyles that push it over the edge for me. And I love the undersized clock in the corner which seems to be say, 'oh, we have trains here, too'

 

[Beton Brut]

The design of Milan's station is in part the result of Mussolini's influence. He pushed for a monumental design.

Indeed. I'm not sure who the Italo-Fascist analog was to Albert Speer.

i found out about Eliel Saarinen's Helsinki Central Station a few weeks ago and I fell in love with it...

For my money, Saarinen's Central Station in Helsinki is among the most important (and beautiful) civic buildings constructed in Europe prior to WWI. It should come as no surprise that Saarinen p?re was aware of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright (though the station design presages Wright's Wasmuth Portfolio by about 5 years), Saarinen and Wright became friends after Saarinen emigrated to the States in 1923.

 

[tobyjug]

Italy 1922-1945 didn't have an equivalent to Speer. Italian Facism in power was the logical continuation of the Savoyard constitutional monarchy and the traditions of "liberal" Italy. As such, facism had no inherent or consistent ideology manifested as a single architectural face. You like futurism, you got it. You like beaux arts, you got it. Just do it big and theatrical.

The closest it got might have been EUR in Rome, which was more of a collaboration of architects rather than a Speer and Hitler playing with models of Germania and the great domed hall. Ironically, alot of EUR was built post 1945, albeit to 1930's plans!

p.s. great thread!

 

[Beton Brut]

Thanks for the insight, Toby.

Info on the Orwellian EUR is here.

 

[Shepard]

I did some work in EUR earlier in the year, but it didn't live up to my expectations. It hardly stuck me as any more "Orwellian" than the Federal architecture of DC. The size of the buildings is also necessary for a business district in a city where there are very few opportunities to have wide floorplans.

As for the Milan station, the wider setting is a rather modern and decrepit hotel/office district that stinks of some sort of urban renewal. Street view

 

[tobyjug]

^^^^
Urban redevelopment by the followers of Guilio Douhet in the 40's.

 

[jass]

I was just in Milan. I loved the station.

 

[unterbau]

pirelli building in the first pic is makin me swoon