Stadelhofen Station, Zurich, Switzerland

Architect	Santiago Calatrava
Date Built	Completed 1990
Location	Stadelhoferstrasse 8, 8001 Zürich
Description
The Stadelhofen Railway Station in Zurich opened in 1894. This page concerns itself with the rebuilding of the station in the 1990s to a design by Santiago Calatrava. It was to become his first award winning project. The commission called for the accommodation of a third track and the creation of a commercial arcade. Calatrava's design provided those requirements and added a canopied promenade, three contrasting bridges, stairs, elevators as well as the support of the power cables. Calatrava's website explains that in order to ease the flow of passengers within the station the original design was altered to, "... provide stairs and escalators to each side of the old building. The station was thus transformed into a linear environment, where trains can be approached quickly from all directions. Options for accommodating a third track were a tunnel (the more intricate but less intrusive approach) and an open excavation (the quicker solution). Calatrava proposed a compromise that respected the terrain but could be implemented without delay. He demolished the old retaining wall, undercut the slope and retained the hill with a concrete box-beam with convex soffit, supported at the rear by an anchored and piled wall and supported by a series of slanting, tapering, triple-point columns at the front. .... .... Above the box-beam, running its full length, is a promenade, enhanced by a cable trellis to create a green 'canopy'." "Covering the open platform is a curved canopy made of translucent glass, which allows light to filter down to the sub-terranean passageway through prefabricated glass-brick elements laid in the platform." "A road bridge follows the gradient of the hill" "a ... pedestrian bridge springs like a thin, undulating membrane of concrete from a distinctive sculptural base."