St Pancras International opens today. Every night this week BBC2 are running "The £800 Million Railway Station" which is about the transformation project. The chief architect Alastair Lansley wanders around the site pointing out to the construction people where they've failed to finish things properly. But the main problem, and the one that resulted in his weeping into his mobile phone, was the fact that the glass panels on the east side were two inches out of line. He went to another architect for sympathy. "I think I'll cut my throat," he said. He wasn't joking.I think I'll go this morning and inspect.
I thought it was going to be some glorious advertising puff ,but it turned out to be a very candied film, with very blunt interviews and some astonishing un-reconstructed 1980's nonsense corporate speak thrown in.
ReplyDelete£800 million to save 20 minutes, and there was nothing wrong with Waterloo anyway. Sure, spend money and do up St Pancras, but moving the Eurostar? - what a waste of money.
ReplyDeleteAren't you glad that someone cares that much as the chief architect?
ReplyDeleteWent last week (before recording the podcast) and liked the view of the glass roof from underneath, but miss - and don't know if it will return - the walking under the original, slightly shabby, entrance of St Pancras Chambers. That's the station, rather than some glass Xanadu halfway to Camden...
ReplyDeleteIt's all politics. The whole thing is designed to remind the French about what happened to Napoleon.
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