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Revolutionary Railways
| Article
# : |
18101 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1990 |
1,575 Words |
| Author
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Marcus Binney
Marcus Binney, is president of Save Britain's Heritage. |
If you want to see two of Europe's brightest and most colorful new buildings, simply fly to Holland's Schipol Airport and take a train. Two stops along you will arrive at Amsterdam Slotterdijik - a station that opens a new age in railway architecture as exciting as the advent of the iron and glass roofs of the great nineteenth-century termini.
Holland's revolutionary new stations are based on the simple recognition that there is no more dazzling color in architecture than the blue of the sky. Allow the sunlight to flood in the length and breadth of the building, and every surface will sparkle. And the passengers will be filled with a new a joie de vivre.
Walk into the glass-walled concourse at Slotterdijik and you will see one o the mist compelling images in the whole history of railway architecture - an express train rolling through the station above you in glass tunnel.
Here is what the French call architecture parlance - buildings, which proclaim their purpose.
A station, says Harry Reijnders, the architect, "should be open and welcoming, with maximum visibility. Then you don't need pitcuregrams to find your way around. If you see a lot you're seen a lot - people feel secure and there is much less vandalism." The waiting rooms on the platforms are all-glass boxes brightly lit at night with no frightening dark corners.
Market research showed that passengers were as concerned about cold, drafty platforms as they were about prices and finding
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