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Ford Motor Co. is in discussions to purchase the dilapidated Michigan Central Station in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood just outside of downtown, Crain's has learned from multiple sources familiar with the negotiations. — Crain's Detroit Business
"A redevelopment of the depot, which has been abandoned and blighted for three decades since Amtrak stopped service in 1988, would be one of the most expensive and complex local undertakings in recent history," Crain's reports. View full entry
I’d been assigned to write a story about Pennsylvania Station, but I wanted to get a caboose-eye view of the decaying tunnels leading up to it, because the only imaginable way the station could be any worse is if it were underwater. Penn, the Western Hemisphere’s busiest train station, serves 430,000 travelers every weekday—more than LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark airports combined. — Bloomberg Businessweek
"As the gateway to America’s largest city," Devin Leonard writes in his piece for Bloomberg Businessweek, "Penn Station should inspire awe, as train stations do in London, Paris, Tokyo, and other competently managed metropolises. Instead, it embodies a particular kind of American failure—the... View full entry
Time flies mercilessly, and another iconic example of contemporary architecture is already celebrating its 10th anniversary: designed by the late Dame Hadid and shortlisted for the 2008 RIBA Stirling Prize, the four stations of Innsbruck’s Nordpark Cable Railway opened to the public in December... View full entry
When built, Union Station was called the "Last of the Great Railway Stations." Designed by father and son team John and Donald B. Parkinson, the landmark opened in 1939 at a time when railway service was already beginning to wane. Combining Art Deco, Spanish Colonial, and Mission Revival styles... View full entry
Talk about redeveloping the long-vacant Michigan Central Station in Detroit's Corktown area heated up again Thursday during an announcement about this year's Detroit Homecoming, which will hold the first significant private event in the 104-year-old train station since the mid-1980s. [...]
"(Redevelopment of) the depot is going to take a marathon, but we're not at the beginning of the race, we're a few miles into it," said Matthew Moroun, whose father, Matty, bought the building in 1995.
— crainsdetroit.com
"I said, 'there's one thing: Every time I read a damn national story about Detroit, there's a picture of the train station with the holes in the windows as the international image of the city's decline,'" Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is quoted saying, recalling his conversation with billionaire... View full entry
Conway confirmed what several mathematicians have noticed since the station’s unveiling: the pattern on the façade follows the logic not of Conway’s Life but of Wolfram’s Rule 30, a different cellular automaton identified by the computer scientist Stephen Wolfram. — Quartz Media
Atkins designed £50m Cambridge North railway station, a 4,843 sq ft building with three platforms and parking, opened this May.Its aluminum façade was inspired by The Game of Life, a cellular automaton that a British mathematician John Horton Conway developed in 1970. Conway, nevertheless... View full entry
After 19 years, the Arnhem Central Station masterplan will finally be complete with the public opening of the new transfer hall tomorrow. Since UNStudio won the competition in 1996, the journey to construct the urban development in the Dutch city of Arnhem was an arduous one filled with “an... View full entry
It's been over 50 years, but for many, the destruction of Charles Follen McKim's original Pennsylvania Station still stings (hey, even Mad Men mourned its passing). But now, there is a hopeful (if improbable) plan from Richard W. Cameron—principal designer at Atelier & Co—to bring back the civic jewel of a long-gone New York.
According to Traditional Building's's Clem Labine, Cameron's plan has three main goals [...]."
— ny.curbed.com
Previously View full entry
Six years after the project was first announced, Delft's new railway station hall opened its doors to the public this past Saturday. Designed by native Dutch firm Mecanoo, the new building purposefully nods to its cultural roots so that visitors arriving at the station will know from the get-go... View full entry
“Penn Station did not make you feel comfortable; it made you feel important.” [...]
Unlike McKim’s monument, today’s Penn Station — where many visitors, both domestic and international, encounter New York City for the first time — certainly does not make you feel important. Comparing the vanished terminal with this tawdry replacement, the Yale architectural historian Vincent Scully once wrote, “One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat.”
— nytimes.com
Previously View full entry
The L.A. Metro Board of Directors officially approved the Los Angeles Union Station Master Plan in downtown L.A. to advance from planning to implementation. For the past two years, Metro has worked with a consultant team led by Grimshaw Architects and Gruen Associates to expand the iconic station... View full entry
Let's start with the building itself, the actual architecture. Union Station is a neo-classical mix of styles — European styles. The symmetry, arched windows, ornate cornice and stacked, stone walls have their roots in the glory days of France, England, Greece and Rome, in empires that were nearly absent of ethnic minorities and who felt fully at ease invading, exploiting and actually enslaving the people of Africa, subcontinent Asia and South America. — denverpost.com
The CTRC’s efforts are part of a larger phenomenon of rail station preservation occurring throughout the Rust Belt, including places such as Cincinnati’s Union Terminal, and Detroit’s Michigan Central Station. And while a geographic disadvantage and heavy rehabilitation costs make for an uphill battle, the Buffalo nonprofit and its ebullient members have high hopes for the future. — beltmag.com
The Paris Métro, opened in 1900, extends over more than 200 kilometers of track, serving more than 300 individual stops. But there are 11 more stations that, though once built, now stand nearly abandoned. Many of these "ghost" or "phantom" stations shuttered after the occupation during WWII. [...]
Parisian mayoral candidate Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet has a bold plan for these phantom stations ... these abandoned spaces should be reclaimed for the city's residents.
— The Atlantic Cities
Working alongside mayoral candidate Kosciusko-Morizet, architect Manal Rachdi and urban planner Nicolas Laisné composed a few renderings of what the stations could become under the proposal. Featuring Arsenal, one of the stations closed since 1939, here are a few potential uses:Night... View full entry
Since Gruen Associates and Grimshaw Architects were approved in 2012 to create the L.A. Union Station Master Plan, the leading designers and their team recently got the green light from the L.A. Metro to begin the plan's third and final phase.
Preserving the station's iconic nature and enhancing its surrounding 17 hectares to address the city's most pressing needs in the future, the proposal is set for completion in Summer 2014.
— bustler.net
Images via Grimshaw Architects Previously: Los Angeles Metro Approves Gruen/Grimshaw for Union Station Master Plan View full entry
