Station forecourt

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Bremerhaven main station and main post office

In addition to its function as a mediator between the railway and the city, the station forecourt can be understood as an inner-city traffic junction or as a meeting point, assembly point, etc. The general rule is that train travelers get a first lasting impression of a city at the station forecourt. The station forecourt thus serves as a city's calling card. It takes on the function of a gate, which is passed again when leaving the city.

In addition to the “classic” urban and spatial functions, the station forecourt is characterized by the fact that movement and standstill find a counterpart in the urban expression of street and square .

function

Barcelona: Central-Sants station forecourt

Places in general carry a wide variety of functions and fulfill a wide variety of tasks. “Special places” are those that are assigned to an “institution” and its buildings in particular. These are the Marktplatz , the Rathausplatz, the Domplatz , the Theaterplatz , the Universitätsplatz , the Börseplatz etc. However, it does not seem to be particularly useful to compare these places directly with the station forecourt. However, an indirect comparison, namely as part of the urban network of city squares, seems permissible.

Dimensioning

The station forecourt generally takes up much larger space than other urban squares and is often crossed to a large extent by traffic flowing through it (i.e. it occasionally turns into a traffic square). Nevertheless, there are similarities with the mentioned "special places". The station forecourt is in the same way an urban spatial element and as such part of a spatial sequence of moments of reflection, orientation and decision-making, which are geared towards the meaning of the square, in this case the station.

It is not only the shape of the station that has a significant influence on the station forecourt: topographical conditions are also of decisive importance. A distinction must be made between the following options, particularly with regard to the layering of the terrain:

  • the platform is on a higher level than the forecourt;
  • the platform and the forecourt are on the same level;
  • the platform is lower than the forecourt.

See also

South forecourt of Berlin Central Station

There are hardly any "representative" station forecourts. Building land is scarce and expensive. Clarity and short distances, traffic control , parking lots , taxi stands and accessibility force sterile arbitrariness.

literature

  • Hans Böck: The design of the station forecourt as a traffic and urban planning task. In: Railway technology. 5, 1951, pp. 1-11.
  • F. Engelbrecht: The station forecourt in the cityscape, especially in that of the city of Hanover. In: Journal of Architecture and Engineering. 55, 1909, pp. 57-70.
  • Heinz Falck: Entrance building and station forecourt. In: Ewald Grassman: Handbuch des Eisenbahnwesen. Röhrig, Darmstadt 1961, pp. 288-308.
  • Max-Erich Feuchtinger: Station squares . In: Railway technical review. 6, 1952, pp. 193-207.
  • Aspects for the design of station forecourts. VÖV, Cologne / Frankfurt am Main 1961.
  • Franz Hipp: Basics about the station forecourt. In: Railway construction. 3, No. 8, 1950, pp. 171-174.
  • Keckeisen, Willy and Lambert Walter: Station squares. In: Railway technical review. 1952, pp. 208-220.
  • Josef W Korte: The station forecourt in the city. In: Yearbook of RWTH Aachen 1952/53. Girardet, Essen 1953, pp. 59-63.
  • Philipp Kremer: Design of station forecourts. In: The new city. 4, No. 3, 1950, pp. 94-99.
  • F. Lademann, C. Risch: The local public transport. Springer, Berlin 1957: Section VIII / D / 4c: “Station forecourt”.
  • Bob Martens: The station forecourt in the big city in the 19th and 20th centuries. (= Dissertations from the Technical University of Vienna. Volume 46). VWGÖ, Vienna 1988, ISBN 3-85369-718-6 .

Web links

Wiktionary: Bahnhofsvorplatz  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations