I love books, architecture, railways and trains (among other things lah!), so this book was a must have as soon as I laid my eyes on it at a bookshop. Railway stations; masterpieces of architecture by Charles Sheppard was published in 1996.
The book has only three chapters; the first on the early development of railway stations, the second on the great European railways and finally on the US and global railway network. There are lots of pictures of course, of the beautiful stations like the Victoria, King's Cross, and St. Pancras in London, the Gare du Nord and Gare d'Orsay in Paris, Victoria Terminus in Mumbai, Grand Central of New York, Helsinki station, the Moscow subway stations, etc., etc. 'The world's great railway stations are evocative of romantic, cross-continental journeys and rough-and-ready adventure. Not simply imposing examples of civic architecture, these structures also represent massive feats of engineering'.
At the end the author laments on the decline of the world's railways due to the popularity of other modes of transportation but hopes that the sophisticated technologies of Europe's and Japan's high-speed trains 'may yet bring about a new era of rail travel and a return to the tradition of grand station-building'.
"Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha" to all who celebrate today.
P.S. Although our Kuala Lumpur Railway Station is not included in this book, I think it is a most beautiful and romantic building. Pity it is pretty neglected now that we have the
Ex Libris CNB 0222
No comments:
Post a Comment