Thursday 26 September 2013

King's Cross


I guess it's the sentimentality part of me that comes to the fore in this case, but news that the King's Cross station refurbishment has again revealed the original façade of the station, as pictured above, has lifted my spirits somewhat.

Defaced by the ghastly, dreary and unwelcoming 1970's frontage...

...King's Cross appears to have returned back to the 'train temple' most Victorian stations were intended to be. It's worrying, and a lesson from history, to think that both it and the next door Victorian masterpiece St Pancras were at some points earmarked for demolition.

There's architectural progress, and there's architectural vandalism, nothing demonstrates that more than nearby Euston station with an equally communist steel box design of the 1960's...

 which replaced the Euston Arch...

However at least some mistakes of history are being rectified, albeit in a relatively small way.

4 comments:

  1. Many thanks, BF, for posting on this subject - and away from your usual themes - when there are so many other stories seeking attention. Remember, King's Cross was startlingly modern when it was built, this causing much comment at the time and even more so when St Pancras was built in Gothic style a decade or so later.
    What a pity, too, that the vandals also struck the unique Carlisle Citadel

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    1. No problem Mike, I have a certain passion of trying to protect our significant buildings - they are a history lesson in physical form. And as the American Bill Bryson observed we have so much culture we take it for granted.

      It's a tricky task deciding what "startlingly modern" buildings will be seen as culturally significant in the future or what remains an eyesore - tastes change. A good example is Preston bus station.

      Yet it worries me that we sometimes have a unfortunate habit of knocking down old buildings on a whim.

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  2. Have they found platform 93/4 as well?

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    1. As if by magic, here it is at King's Cross...

      http://collider.com/wp-content/uploads/Harry-Potter-Platform-9-3-4-kings-cross.jpg

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