Opinion: London's modern railway stations are a shadow of past glories
Architect Chris Romer-Lee laments the replacement of London's once glorious stations with unfriendly and awkward new constructions. But does it have to be this way?
Chris Romer-Lee is co-founder of architecture practice Studio Octopi
One of the (many) joys of working as an architect in London is the chance to visit unfamiliar areas of our glorious city. Whether a prospective client meeting or another meeting on site, the first impressions of an area are relayed through the train station or point of disembarking from a bus.
Over the past 18 months, we've been working on a large private house extension and basement in Putney. When we first visited the house, Putney Station's cramped Victorian station was intact. Just 18 months later, and still counting, the heart of the station has been ripped out and replaced by shocking generic design solutions to resolve overcrowding.
Last week on a final site visit, I stood on the platform in the autumn drizzle and the horror of the refurbishment really hit home. What is National Rail doing to suburban stations across London, indeed across the country as a whole under the auspices of 'upgrading stations'?
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Railway architecture used to be a celebration of travel, a glorious welcome, a memorable departure: the magic of steam, the joy of speed. The great stations of London, Kings Cross (Lewis Cubitt, 1850) and Paddington (Isambard Kingdom Brunel, 1854) are triumphant reflections of the magical age of rail travel. However the love of rail didn't stop there, suburban stations were also real gems. Battersea Park Station, Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill are all delights by architect Charles Henry Driver who also worked with Joseph Bazalgette on Thames pumping stations in the 1860s. Driver was a significant Victorian architect, and a pioneer of ornamental metalwork. He was so well regarded that he travelled as far afield as Sao Paolo for the 'Station of Light' in 1897.
Past glories: Kings Cross Station by Lewis Cubitt
Caledonian Road & Barnsbury. Photo: Andrew Keeson
Changing travel habits, coupled with London's population growth from 2.4m (1851) to 8m (2011), have necessitated a major overhaul of the railway stations of London. Most of the major stations have seen considerable modernisation programmes undertaken by recognised architects and engineers. Suburban stations seem to be suffering from their apparent lesser status and there are many examples of recent refurbishments that fall well below par in terms of design.
Caledonian Road & Barnsbury. Photo: Andrew Keeson
Putney, Denmark Hill and Caledonian Road & Barnsbury stations epitomise the misery unleashed on our suburban stations. The Putney Station entrance, facing the high street, is an unremarkable brick Victorian elevation (unlike the Grade II Listed Denmark Hill). Pleasant but of a typology we are all familiar with. However, beyond the original ticket hall, it's all change. A vast steel framed shed has been clumsily engineered onto the rear of the station. It's an astonishingly bland edifice.
Caledonian Road & Barnsbury. Photo: Andrew Keeson
A mass of (possibly redundant) steelwork has created large spans and uninterrupted views towards the platforms below. Glazed along the rear wall and down to the platforms, puzzlingly the glass has been entirely covered with a frosted window film, obscuring any views onto the platforms or trains. Why? Health and safety? Probably the idea is that if you can't see the train in the station, perhaps you won't run for it? We've all stood on the railway bridge watching the trains whoosh underneath us; Putney Station is churlishly removing this pleasure. In a brilliant and openly defiant response to the frosted film, passengers seem already (prior to completion) to have begun picking it away.
On the platforms, the horror of this brutal station appendage is laid bare. The additions are insensitive to their host building and resemble the worst kind of temporary building, despite being permanent. Gone are the intricacies and craftsmanship of the original canopies, the slender cast iron columns and timber boarding; in their place is municipal architecture at its utter worst. Standing on the platform in autumn rain, things could hardly seem worse for travel from suburban stations. But surely the view need not be so bleak?
Signature railway stations across London used to be the work of visionary architects and engineers, who created exceptional structures. Putney and the other stations mentioned are anything but. The assembled parts are no doubt the result of a restrictive budget, value engineering, however, where is the vision? There is a complete absence of dialogue between the design and the host structure. It barely gets the basics right and is not, most definitely not, a credit to the civic spaces of Putney.
