Stafford is not everyone's cup of tea. It's a late flowering of the genre, the smooth finish replaced with rough cast concrete in a nod to the impending Brutalist era.
But the focus on the passenger, on bringing light and an airy feel into the station, was the same -- here the giant plate glass windows of the waiting room overlook the platforms below.
There's the same asymmetric composition provided by the sharp verticals of the lift towers (provided to service the parcels business, but brilliantly useful today to provide easy access for passengers).
At Stafford I'm not wild about some of the detailing -- those parallel red-painted wooden balcony panels do nothing for me -- and the effect is rather heavy for my taste, but there is no doubting the audacity of the concept.
The flying roof at the front of the building signposts the entrance and provides a broad welcome for all, even on an overcast late Autumn day.
Not too far away lurks Coventry, largely destroyed by Nazi bombing, and thus a centre for all sorts of interesting architectural experiments of the 1950s and 60s. The cathedral is the most famous of these, followed closely by the railway station.
In fact this was rather hurriedly built to ensure it was ready for the arrival of the Queen by train on her way to open the Cathedral. It used the basic spatial planning devised at Banbury (the first of the post-War "modern" stations), honed by experiences on the Eastern Region at Harlow.
The same long, low horizontals that we saw at Harlow Town are here stretched even further -- this was meant to be a station fit for a Queen and, for years, was BR's flagship modern station.
The thing about Coventry is that it's all about the light -- huge plate glass windows (sadly uncleaned) were intended to let sunlight pour into the modern, efficient station, services provided by gleaming and (above all) clean electrified trains.
The contrast with the grubby old age of steam and soot was emphasised. How ironic that, today, it should be allowed to get so dirty.
Even so, there is an architectural purposefulness that the Coventry dirt can't conceal.
Which, alas, is more than can be said for Northampton. This also suffers from uncleaned windows (what is it with Network Rail's inability to clean windows?), but the view of the main station from the footbridge window is depressing for more than just the dirt.
This is such a wasted opportunity: a brand-new station had to be built, so why do it in this depressing style that speaks more of provincial garden centre than of vital centre for communication.
The best thing about it is easily the BR double-arrow symbol, which looks good on pretty much anything.
Including, it has to be said, on the newly-restored facade at Liverpool Lime Street, now giving us one of the best railway facades of anywhere in Britain -- the station with which we'll finish this round-up.
This being Liverpool, there is also the typical scene outside the station where a group of shifty-looking youths are being interrogated by a gang of rozzers:
But riding high above it all is that marvellous, timeless symbol:
Liverpool Lime Street may hark back to an earlier age of great station-building, but some of the best principles of then have been easily incorporated into the dreams of the 1950s.
4 comments:
Always interesting - I never thought I'd find the architecture of stations of any relevance (apart from places like St. Pancras!).
I am disappointed that you have yet to report on the beauties of Luton (town) station as compared to the rough-and-ready Luton Parkway and traditional (Edwardian?) red-brick Leagrave station. The glory of the subtle design and high standards of mainenance of the town station highlight the brutalism and lack of imagination of the nearly complete new car park.
Yes indeed Lime Street is sublime, and its position relative to St George's Hall was an inspiration and remains so: I was there this very evening. But "new" Stafford is BEASTLY! I've such happy memories as a little boy of enjoying a cup of railway tea there with some old railwaymen who were real enthusiasts, in a grubby old shed by a lovely blazing fire. Those old stations had class and wore their age gracefully, but the modern ones lack it and do so quite hideously.
Isn't the BR double arrows symbol from the mid 1960s rather than the 50s?
Yes, the double-arrow symbol emerged in the mid-1960s as part of the Design Research Unit-designed new corporate identity (the "Rail Blue" image).
I'm not sure that Victorian stations age any better than modern ones -- in both cases it's more about how well they are maintained and cherished.
Crewe, for instance, is a God-awful place, full of rotting steel structures and poky stairways, available spaces crammed with tatty "Pumpkin" cafes and "Upper Crust" takeaways; whereas Harlow Town, one of my favourite modern stations, positively gleams with passenger-friendliness.
For me, it's more about the success of the original design concept and the care that has gone into its maintenance.
The Lime St Stn/St George's Hall pairing is a very happy one. I just wish the Council wouldn't stick quite so many lamp-posts/cctv poles/tall traffic lights/sundry other street furniture around them, making photography difficult.
Haven't been to Luton for years. I mean, why would I? But now you've given me an excuse: I'll do some research. In my defence, I have been meaning to go to Bedford for ages.
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