UFO-Style Renovation Of Strasbourg Railway Station
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- This video tells the story of the central station in Strasbourg, France, the history of its transformations, and how it and the surrounding area look now.
An important note: I was there a few years ago, so some of the details now differ from what I saw, which will also be mentioned in the video.
#cityforall #city #urbanism #strasbourg #france #gare #railways #railwaystation #renovation #garecentrale #centralstation #strasbourgtrams #strasbourgfrance
Timecodes:
00:00 - Intro
00:19 - History
01:36 - The latest redevelopment project
03:21 - Surrounding environment
05:16 - Inside the station
07:55 - Conclusions
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On the whole, this seems like a very good improvement on how it used to be. I agree its a shame you cant really see the old facade during the day from outside, but at least its not totally hidden. The plaza design outside is the best bit in my view. They've given priority to the right things and made paths that follow desire lines. Very good.
Didn't even watch It but i'm sure that it's going to be amazing
I've already commented under your recent community post, but I think it is so funny that the station entrance and the square in front of it are so modern and clean while the platforms look so neglected, I just don't understand
Thanks for making this video. I always found this station peculiar but I couldn't find much information on it in my language. I personally liked the glass structure, it reminds me of a ship-in-a-bottle or a snow globe. Though it looks like the visibility of the historic facade depends on the time of day and weather, which is a shame.
I guess the primarily benefit of the new glass structure is reclaiming the space in front of the old building, basically turning it in to a much larger station without having to demolish the original historic station.
Yes, that's really looks like a ship in a bottle. That's very poetic!
6:30 A central platform would have been ill-advised for a few reasons :
There's a single tunnel with interlining of 2 tram lines, resulting in an important tram frequency and a lot of passengers.
Space being constricted, a central platform would have caused many passenger flow conflicts.
A double TGV having up to more than 1000 seats, passenger flow during peak hours was a concern.
You'd have needed a much wider platform than what was available to avoid passenger flow conflicts on a single central one.
So, two platforms, one for each track side, were better for passenger flow than a central platform given the space that was available. Cross-platform connections were not important there as both lines share the same corridor in other stations too, where it is easier to transfer.
Plus, a central platform would also have required more "cavity volume" at both ends for the tracks to rejoin in a Y shape into the single bore tunnel.
The underground tram station is not specifically more utilitarian than any other of the time, it is neo-brutalist typical of SNCF stations of the 90's and 2000's, with a lot of exposed smooth concrete and various concrete textures.
I tend to prefer the previous cozier directed lighting than the current brighter and colder general lighting.
A couple other important points :
The 1883 neo-renaissance and pink sandstone station building's facade was also covered by the glass structure to protect it from the elements and limit the erosion of details on the sandstone and statues by rain and wind.
The station also needed a new welcoming and waiting area to handle the much higher passenger traffic created by the opening of the Eastern high-speed line in two phases in 2007 and 2016, reducing Paris Strasbourg from 4+ hours of travel time to 2h20 in 2007 then 1h45 in 2016 and the forecasted end of flights on the route, to more than double the capacity of the station and to link the high-speed / mainline and underground tramway stations together, becoming a major transportation hub.
Also interesting to note is that the glass structure envelopes the facade without ever touching it. Interface between the original building and the self-supporting glass structure is made out of brush joints to limit winds from sifting into the new hall.
The original facade is marvelously lit at night and glows under its glass dome. The facade is visible during the night and at several moments during the day depending on the sun's orientation and reflection on the glass structure.
There's also a project to open the station on its Western side with the addition of silo car parks and the subsequent transformation of the current main subterranean car park (on the Eastern side) into a large underground bicycle parking garage, turning the entire Eastern side into a pedestrian and transportation only area, with private cars pushed away to the Western side.
In the future, line C should be rerouted away from the station with line E taking its place, plus the conversion of bus line H into a tramway line, interlined with E for a portion of its length.
Thank you for your very informative comment, you have clarified a lot of points.
Reminds me of Lleida station, in Catalonia, Spain. With the arrival of HSR they made a new cover for the station's platforms which is quite futuristic (all glass and curvy), but they maintained the old station.
It is in my opinion one of the most beatiful stations from the outside in Spain, and the remodelation is so similar to the one in the video, but without covering the whole original facade xd
@4:17 No : underground parking is around 200 spots - not close to 750. We have two parking buildings around the stations for longer stay : Wodli (~1000 cars) and Sainte Aurélie (~600). In the current decade, the city wants to build another silo behind the train station (~800 cars) and use the underground one only for bicycles.
@4:51 you forgot about one line, on the surface, near the "UFO", clearly shown on the map you're showing :)
@@kyah117shame, sounds like the right MoT were mostly prioritised otherwise 😳
@@pcongre what do you mean ?
About the parking - seems I've found incorrect information about it, sorry.
About the surface line - I know about it but I meant the number of lines in the tunnel. It was probably worth formulating more clearly
@@kyah117 i just mean that, even though those motor parking spaces likely will be able to partly be converted into something better in the future (e g into bike parking, as in the example you yourself brought up), it's a shame they are built at all, after ~100 years of traffic planning studies demonstrating all the negative externalities motor infra inevitably entails
I actually like it. It will also protect the facade of the old station and stop the progressive weathering of the sand stone
Lots of locals, myself included, hate glass envelope aswell as the plaza in front of the station. The envelope is just very ugly, and the plaza/square in front of the station is lifeless and gets very slippery when it rains.
Also, there are no longer shops in the underground level; they all closed down a very long time ago due to lack of customers and apparently also because of dirty air coming from the tunnel. It is now used as a storage for rental bikes.
As for the underground tram station, it does indeed look very grey, depressing, and is purely functional. There has been attempts to make it a little more "joyful", the walls and concrete beams were painted in a warm red color which honestly was kinda nice. But there has always been a major issue with this station ; water infiltration. It's a problem that still goes on today despite many attempts to fix it. Add that to the escalators that have been broken down for months and you can say that this station is in quite miserable conditions. It does the job right, but they should consider an extensive overhaul of it, to try and fix the infiltrations problem once and for all, add benches, make it more welcoming, and replace all the outdated installations like escalators and elevators.
Strasbourg railway station is beautiful and i think it is sad that peoples don't enjoy it as much :(
And currently the inside of the old building of the station, there is a lot of work going on, i just don't if it is renovation or adaptation, but the renovation part seems more likely.
I'm glad and thank you for making a video about it :3
I hope more people is going to appreciate it ^^
Thanks! Hope I haven't critisized it too much.
@@cityforall oh no don't worry ^^
Wow. Looks hideous. At least they didn’t tear it down.
I personally dislike these glass and steel structures. Just because something looks "futuristic" doesn't make it good. The old facade is amazing, and while I'm glad they didn't tear it down (as they likely would have in the US), covering it up seems pretty silly. "Modern" architecture is frankly something to be discouraged, and we should stick to traditional architecture as much as we can.
I understand, I generally have quite similar feelings.
The first time you see it, it has a wow effect, but if you think about it more calmly, I would also rather preserve the view of the old facade. Although, of course, this is not for me to decide, but for the people of Strasbourg.
@@cityforall Yeah, modern glass and steel does have a wow effect, and it often looks great in architectural renderings, but the problem is usually two-fold:
1) it often doesn't mix well with surrounding structures.
2) it's very cold and uninteresting and not very pleasant to actually be around.
There's a bit of a growing movement to move away from this architectural practice, and I do hope it catches on. At least for this structure it won't be too difficult to remove if they decide to get rid of it, lol.
@@jamalgibson8139 But they will still need some kind of cover to get down to the underground station, otherwise it will be flooded with snow in winter :)