Russian Metropolitan Railway Stations as Historical Architectural Masterpieces

Abstract

According to the author of the article, the appearance of the first railway stations immediately became the most striking image of the time. The history of the architecture of Russian railway stations begins at the same time when the first railway in Russia was built connecting St. Petersburg to Pavlovsk. Previously existing post stations and the so-called road imperial palaces served prototypes for railway stations.

The railway station is, first, a story in which both the most interesting architectural and social plots collide. The railway station offers passengers the most vivid images of our time. The architects who designed the first railway stations had to solve problems that no one had ever encountered before: to cover train sheds by a roof, to design platforms, lighting, ventilation, acoustics... All this made the railway station the most technically enriched architectural genre of its time. And in this sense, the railway station architecture is a very interesting plot, in which everything changes very quickly and where all human relations are very aggravated. Therefore, the railway station is a condensed replica of society. Therefore, at the railway station, you can always very clearly see how society is organised. For example, at imperial railway stations, division of passengers per travel classes was obvious and inherent in the architectural program itself. The imperial pavilions, the imperial rooms also make part of the story... The railway station is, first, an image of modernity, mobility and a history of boundaries between the country and the city. This is especially interesting in the case of metropolitan railway stations.