What was wrong? Why was this train station, built in the late '30s in the art deco style, demolished only a few decades later? Why? For the same reasons the station that replaced it is now no longer standing either.
To many of us have a disposable attitude toward or built heritage. Buildings are discarded and for the flimsiest of reasons. Demolishing a building is seen as "no big deal." But it is a big deal. It is wasteful—of materials, of money. It is unimaginative.
Tearing down the old is seen by some as the price of progress. All too often it isn't. It may simply prove to be a way of marking time. A perfectly usable railway station disappears and an equally usable one replaces it. At worse, an irreplaceable building is lost and replaced with a truly disposable structure. And that is what happened in this case.
Today, less that a century after the art deco station was built, the city has a third station which does not appear to offer anymore than the station from the '30s. Which leaves one to wonder: What did the '30s station replace?
Possibly the money wasted building train stations could have been put to better use, and sweetened the pot for funding the design and quality of construction of other civic structures. Just a thought.
1 comment:
That is so sad. Here in Belgrade we have a similar railroad station building. The train station has been 'moved' to a more convenient area to make way for ritzy high-rises.... The main building remains, but for how long?
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