Description

We have all crossed a train station, been in a rush or waited on its platforms. We have all known those emotional moments when taking leave or celebrating the arrival of a loved one, those solitary moments while standing beneath the station clock. We have all felt the frenzy, the hubbub of rush hour, eyes turned toward the arrivals display, steps hurrying off to the right platform, the right train.
But have we taken the time to admire this rail station, its glass roof, concourse, facade, stained glass, mosaics, tiles, sculptures, or frescoes? Rarely. And yet these rail stations have so much to tell us. Some have stood for more than a century, and have lived through wars, revolutions, great fires and floods. They have survived, perhaps been restored or transformed to meet modern needs, stoic and immutable.
The original work Dream Stations, a Worldwide Odyssey tells the story of over fifty of the most beautiful and emblematic stations of the world. This carefully curated selection offers an authentic overview of the wealth of these structures, which are at once symbols of both travel and motion, as well as microcosms of society throughout the world.
Rail stations are the living memory of a city, and the extension of its urban space. They welcome all ages, cultures, nationalities, styles, and have been home to millions of individual or collective stories. They are the very essence of urban mobility and city development issues.
Their architecture is stunning, intriguing, each one a fine example of its era. In these pages we see centenarian, modern, and ultra-contemporary stations, and each one has contributed to the railway transformation.
Many books have been published about trains around the world, yet the great stations have often been overlooked. This work sheds new light upon these structures, and pays tribute to those who built them. It is a testimony to their universal dimension, offering the reader a journey around the globe, a pause between two train journeys.