Similar in format to the Electaarchitecture title, "Twenty Houses by Twenty Architects," this volume presents a series of case studies of different interpretations of one building type. The author's introduction provides an overview of the history of railway architecture, citing its most significant developments. Individual project documentation begins with the Gare de L'Est in Paris, the first major railway station of the nineteenth century. Grand Central Terminal in New York City, of 1903-13, is documented through archival material, including engineering drawings and period photographs, as well as contemporary photographs revealing the major restoration project of the 1990s. Several contemporary stations that have reinvigorated the building type include the Santa Justa station in Seville by Antonio Cruz and Antonio Oritz, the a station in Kyoto by Hiroshi Hara, the Lyon TGV Station by Santiago Calatrava, and the Arnhem Station by Dutch architects Ben von Berkel and Caroline Bos of UN Studio, one of the leading firms of today.

Author Biography

Alessia Ferrarini is a graduate of the Universitario di Architecttura di Venezia and is currently a researcher at the Universita Politecnia delle Marche. Ferrarini has published another book on train stations entitled "La Stazione e Treni nell'Immaginario Collecttivo" ("The Station and Trains in the Collective Imagination") for Pendragon in 1999 and is a contributor to several publications, including "Trame," "Working Papers," "Quaderni di Alice," and "Edilizia Popolare."