Station to Station - Softcover

Parissien, Steven

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0714841021 ISBN 13: 9780714841021

Publisher: Phaidon Press, 2001

Synopsis

Railway stations have long held a special place in the public's affection. The lure of the great terminus has been especially strong: the breathtaking grandeur of its architecture fused with the promise of adventure and escape. This book is a celebration of the life and architecture of the railway station. It examines the history of these fascinating structures, the great events both fictional and real that have occurred there, and how they have formed an integral part of the life of the cities they serve. Steven Parissien discusses the many architectural styles and developments that stations have witnessed over the past 150 years from the early provincial and colonial railways, the Victorian Gothic of London's St Pancras and the Beaux-Arts splendour of Grand Central Station in New York, to the modern structural feats of Nicholas Grimshaw's Waterloo International Terminal and Santiago Calatrava's Lyon Satolas Station. Archive pictures, railway ephemera and new photography are combined to create a fascinating visual record for all those interested in trains, railway stations and travel.

About this title

Review

This thoroughly readable, irresistible volume on railroad-station architecture is so inclusive that it even has a still from Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. Filled with such memorabilia, Station to Station is like a long, wonderful journey in which the stations themselves--our destinations--are simply the high points. There are early timetables, plans, and elevations for many of the most famous stations; antique baggage-claim checks; and sepia prints of ribbon-cutting ceremonies. The volume also includes such mementos as a shot of the Howrah Station in Calcutta, India, with the note that the architect "was well-known for English suburban housing," and painful-to-see photographs of New York's Pennsylvania Station--with "the largest and most monumental single room in the world today," as the grand, light-strewn space was advertised--before its remodeling.

About the Author

Steven Parissien is the Director of Sotheby's Institute, London; he previously worked for the Georgian Group and English Heritage. He is also the author of Adam Style, Regency Style and Palladian Style, all published by Phaidon.

Edition details

• Publisher: Phaidon Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0714841021
• ISBN 13: 9780714841021
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240