Danish Design Journal: 4/16/10 Lecture Reflection: Transportation Design and Architecture

Today's lecture interested me most by its portrayal of transportation design as something equally forward thinking as it is backwardly referential. A quick analysis of London's St. Pancras train station demonstrates how early stations were more than transportation hubs but icons of development, designed to look more like cathedrals than anything. While these grand buildings stood as emblems of progress and acted as status symbols, they also posed a logistical problem - they simply took up too much space. To hide the often ugly new technology, stations were built to cover it up from the public eye. In this instance, similar to Copenhagen's Central Station, St. Pancras stood as both a sign of what was to come (the train is the classic symbol of inevitable technological progress), but nevertheless strove to resemble great buildings of old. Cities may have been proud of these technological giants, but they did not want to scare their citizens with too much change too fast and so disguised them, ironically, as places of worship.

St. Pancras Station, London - ornate, cathedral like design

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01157/portal-graphics-20_1157354a.jpg

Space taken up by St. Pancras Station
http://static.worldarchitecturenews.com/news_images/1325_1_1000%20St%20Pancras.jpg

From this point forward, the main task of transportation designers was the successful integration of traffic. Because transportation infrastructure is difficult to completely disband considering that people still need to get from place A to B, much of transportation design occurs as improvement or renovation, as opposed to creation. Of course, thinking back to the beginning of the semester, all design is simply the development of some pre-existing idea, the improvement of things already created. Once again, then, we are faced with the predicament of needing to move forward while being firmly tied to the past.

Despite often needing to working within an existing framework, Danish Transportation Design seems to be making considerable headway. The plan for the new Nørreport Station in Copenhagen, designed by Public Arkitekter is a perfect example of how Danish transportation design is particularly innovative. In a response to the high level of traffic around the station that isolates it like an island and makes it dirty, congested, and uninviting, traffic has been shifted to that both directions of traffic are on the same side of Nørreport. This not only makes traffic simpler but creates a city pavilion out of the station, leaving space for vendors and cafes. Pavilions will make use of natural light, glass, and curved spaces so as to prevent crime and make the space safe and inviting. Also important are the 3000 spaces for bike parking. The parking looks to the future when even for Danes will use a bike as their primary means of transportation. As functional as the parking is, it is still aesthetic by being contained in depressions in the ground that do not impede sight lines. But incorporated into all of these new features are the subway ventilation pipes that cannot be removed. Also, the subway platforms themselves, while receiving a face-life, are not being expanded as they should be due to lack of funding. Thus, the old exists with the new, and in many way, dictates what new things can and cannot be.