RAILWAY STATIONS Journeys Ends

RAILWAY STATIONS Journeys ends s France is the proud operator of the TGV, the fastest, sleekest train service in Europe, it is curious that the country was such a reluc - Atant and tardy entrant to the railway age. Britain, Germany and Belgium eagerly laid tracks to move the massive payloads of coal and raw materials feeding the Industrial Revolution; France, with its central and provincial governments pressured into inaction by agrarian traditionalists and canal and coastal shipping interests, and without industrialists prepared to foot the bills, lagged behind. The early railway companies laid-out tentative, self-contained networks, each on an artery from Paris. Cross-country travel was hardly served – all rails led to Paris, and Paris alone, albeit to terminii that were as modest as the entrepreneurs’ expectations. By the turn of the 20th century, however, “Never miss an opportunity for a triumphal arch,” seems to have been a guiding principle most of them had been rebuilt at least once to cope with burgeoning traffic. for mid 19th-century French architects. Prime time in this development process was the era of Haussmann, who The Gare du Nord (left) incorporated one well understood the railways’ value to the city. He envisioned local rail links in its stone façade, adding sculptures between all the terminii; that was too disruptive a project for the time, but representing cities it served or hoped to serve, he did ensure clear road connections between them. The Gare de l’Est Covered unloading in the freight among them London and Vienna, Cologne found itself particularly grandly positioned for his traffic patterns, with a yard at the Gare Saint-Lazare and Warsaw. Haussmann considered boulevard approach created for the legendary Orient Express, which made (above left) in about 1850. A few the Gare de l’Est (above) so powerful a years later, Claude Monet found building that he oriented the Boulevard de its first foray to Istanbul on October 4, 1883. the setting and the activity interesting Strasbourg to serve and display it. Today, the west wing of that station is the only significant remnant of the enough to paint it, almost from Gare du Nord: original construction. The nearby Gare du Nord, however, still shows off this viewpoint. The original station JACOB IGNAZ HITTORFF, LEJEUNE, the magnificent frontage installed at the major rebuild of 1864, less than 20 (1837) was Paris’s first. LEON OHNET, 1866. years after its opening. The old façade was transported to the other end of ALFRED ARMAND, 1843. Gare de l’Est : FRANÇOIS-ALEXANDRE its founding line, to dress the station at Lille. The Gare du Nord is now the EUGENE FLACHAT, 1853. DUQUESNEY, PIERRE CABANEL DE busiest station in Europe, feeding the networks of countries to the north and JUSTE LISCH, 1857. SERMET, 1852. BERTAUT, 1931 108 BUILDING PARIS RAILWAY STATIONS 109 Sun-blessed destinations were the promise of the Gare de Lyon, seen here in 1902 in its newly-rebuilt guise. This version was constructed in a hurry, to be a befitting entrance to Paris for visitors to the 1900 Exposition Universelle – a deadline it missed. The station is an eclectic, eccentric mix of style anachronisms. However, there’s nothing indecisive about its Train Bleu restaurant (above), which is now a listed monument. It flaunts confident, overwrought excess where 30 artists left not a scrap of surface undecorated. MARIUS TOUDOIRE, 1902 the Eurostar service through the Channel Tunnel. For florid monumentality, though, the prize went to the Gare d’Orsay, The stations of Paris did not enter the history books for the drama of brazenly positioned across from the Louvre as the downtown terminus for towering ceilings of cast-iron and glass, the first glories of “the temples of the 1900 Exposition Universelle. Too tightly surrounded to allow the steam;” that attention went to London which pioneered such lofty grandeur. enlargements required to handle later, larger trains, it declined miserably. It The Paris terminii attracted notice more for iconographic decoration: was rejuvenated in the 1980s as the Musée d’Orsay. majestic statues along the cornice line at the Gare du Nord representing the A demonstration of flamboyance in the right place is at the Gare de cities served; capitals carved with products farmed along the route to Lyon: the restaurant, Le Train Bleu, a riot of sculpture, gilt and vast paint - Strasbourg at the Gare de l’Est; draped allegorical figures promoting ings, is a Belle Epoque extravaganza named for the fashionable train that Agriculture and Industry at d’Austerlitz. primed the Cote d’Azur. 110 BUILDING PARIS RAILWAY STATIONS 111 This was a sensitive serve the nearby site for a railway Exposition station, at the heart of Universelle of 1900. the Establishment city. The train shed, The architect eschewed, however, was made therefore, outward signs of the right stuff, of the iron and glass appropriate for that contemporary enclosing a modern practice dictated. So it museum (right). was stone and domes VICTOR LALOUX, in fetching formality 1900. ACT- when the Gare ARCHITECTURE, d’Orléans (later, GAE AULENTI, d’Orsay) was built to 1986 112 BUILDING PARIS RAILWAY STATIONS 113 Mitigating circumstances: “we were behind schedule AND the brakes failed.” The driver nevertheless went to prison for this impromptu exit from the new Gare Montparnasse in 1895. The high incidence of women in the crowd leaving the Gare Saint-Lazare on this morning in 1908 is probably because the new Galeries Lafayette department store is just a few steps away. Station rebuilding was a constant feature of the railway age – as recently as the 1930s in the case of the Gare de l’Est. As Haussmann was replumbing Paris, piped water was often too expensive for the poorest residents. They had the Scot, Sir Richard Wallace, to thank for street fountains he donated to his adopted city. Some still quench thirsts on hot summer days (above, in 1914). The replumbing included elegantly contoured sewers. This one was photographed around 1860 by Nadar (real name, Gaspard-Félix Tournachon), a pioneer in the use of artificial lighting. He was also the first aerial photographer, working aboard a hot-air balloon. 114 BUILDING PARIS RAILWAY STATIONS 115.

Load more