Monday, August 6, 2012

Heidelberg main station, Germany

A postcard of the old station showing trams of the city's metre-gauge system which still operates.

Postcard views of the present station, opened on 5 May 1955, and the former station it replaced.  Heidelberg didn't suffer much in WW2 but the inadequacy of the old station had been recognised in the 1930s.
  
The new station building was designed by Deutsche Bundesbahn Director Helmuth Conradi (1903-1973), who had studied architecture in the 1920s with Paul Schmitthenner and Paul Bonatz and was influenced by the Stuttgart School.  The ticket hall with glazed longitudinal walls, as in Hans Freese designs from the Nazi era, provided an angle of 50 degrees with respect to the tracks. On the south wall of the 53 metre long, 16 metre wide and 12 metre high hall, is a graffito by Charles Joseph Huber on the theme of physical movement ("Helios mit Sonnenwagen/Helios with Sun Chariot"). A second,  parallel to the tracks section of the building is on the ground floor, which contained the luggage and express goods preparation, waiting rooms and the railway station and restaurant and on the on the upper floors, DB services.  

In the angle between two parts of the building is located, as a "joint", a circular staircase. Adjacent to the building a hall 91 metres long and 20 metres wide spans the platforms. The roof of the fully glazed hall was produced in curved shapes of prestressed concrete.

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