Christopher Beanland’s new book, Station, is a greatest hits of railway architecture, but it comes at a time when the monumental rail project feels somewhat under threat. A lack of political will and a surfeit of wayward planning have left many big ideas on the table, at a time when investing in railways feels like the most sensible transport strategy of all.
Hauptbahnhof, Berlin, by von Gerkan, Marg and Partners, 2006
Beanland isn’t big on the politics, but he does go large on the splendour, glamour and spectacle of the modern rail interchange. The very best of these stations – in a survey that takes in big names and locations from around the world – are often those that de-tangle and simplify the massive complexity of modern interchanges. On our crowded planet, rail doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s about glueing and grafting the old with the new, directing the flow of trains, goods and people ever onwards.
Station: a journey through 20th and 21st century railway architecture and design
RER, Paris, France, Auber Pods, 1971
The featured stations range from the mighty cathedrals of travel created in the early 20th century, to idiosyncratic artistic spectacles, subterranean installations, and everything from retro to deco, neo-classicism, brutalism, high tech and more. If there’s a criticism, it’s that Station cherry picks the 50 singular best stops at the expense of those more coherent examples of railway design that span whole lines, networks, even countries.
Metro Station, Doha, Quatar, Qatar Railways Company, designed by UNStudio, 2020
As well as a best-of that covers everything from high speed to light rail, Beanland has enlisted some fellow travellers to enthuse about their best railway experiences. Station does its best to reanimate the romanticism of rail travel, rather than the commercialised reality. Many of the great buildings featured within are pointedly shown without their vital retail underbellies on show. Nevertheless, anything that heralds the railways as a triumphant and vital social space is to be celebrated: we suggest a copy for the desk of every freshly elected transport minister the world over.
Kohta Station, Kohta, Finland, by Aalto University Wood Program, 2018/19
Station: A journey through 20th and 21st century railway architecture and design, Christopher Beanland, Batsford, £25, BatsfordBooks.com, @BatsfordBooks
Also available from Amazon and Waterstones
-
Tune into the rhythm of Tokyo’s most ambitious record shopVinyl Delivery Service in east Tokyo’s Skwat Kameari Art Centre is spinning a new narrative for the traditional record store model
-
From Cubism to Pop, artists’ jewellery goes on show in Palm Beach‘Artists’ Jewelry: From Cubism to Pop, the Diane Venet Collection’ at the Norton Museum of Art showcases key pieces from an impressive collection
-
Wallpaper* checks in at Waldorf Astoria Osaka‘It’s rare to work on a brand new hotel of this scale in Japan in today’s landscape,’ says designer Andre Fu about Osaka’s newest luxury hotel. Wallpaper* paid it an early visit
-
Formula 1 in photos: 100 memorable momentsA new book, ‘Formula 1: The Impossible Collection’, marks 75 years of the motor-racing championship – a history full of tenacity, triumph and tragedy
-
Two new books celebrate the art of automotive photography from very different angles‘Macchina’ collates photographer Jon Nicholson’s portfolio of modern motorsport imagery, while ‘Automotive Type D’ is INK studio’s fourth volume of car-focused creative briefs
-
80 years of BMW design in a monumental new book‘BMW: Behind the Scenes’ is billed as the ultimate book on the Bavarian carmaker’s aesthetic history
-
Car design and more: five tomes that track trends in transport designFrom airline design, the heyday of concept cars through to the origins of the world’s most notable logos, five covetable books that track trends in transport design
-
Auto Erotica: new book chronicles the sensuous simplicity of vintage car adsVintage car ads, from the 1960s to the 1980s, are honoured in the cheekily titled new book Auto Erotica
-
Glamorous garages explored in a love letter to carsUltimate Collector Cars book is a billet-doux to the automotive form, lavishly showcasing the car as art from 1900 to the present day
-
Unseen Porsche images reveal the cars that could have beenPorsche lays bare its creative process in a new book, Porsche Unseen, that features unreleased car designs
-
Could the Citroen DS’s reign as a supreme design object be coming to an end?Swiss architect Christian Sumi's new book is perhaps the final word on the creation, status and legacy of the remarkable automobile
