Fra le reti e la città. Lo spazio delle nuove stazioni per l'Alta Velocità

Between networks andcities: Architectural space in the newHigh-Speed train stations.Over the past thirty years, megainvestmentrail projects in Western Europehave become powerful transformationvectors. An extensive literature addressesthe issue with an urban engineering orientedapproach, concerned primarilywith the large scale and focusing ongovernance and urban planning. Thismonograph section of “Trasporti &Cultura” examines the relationship ofnew high-speed railroad stations to theircities. The objective is to investigate thedepth and meaning of the transformationsbeing wrought by the new stations, ina comparative international scenario.Articles on Japan and China are followedby European case studies. The academicpremise that looked to railway stationsand tracks as a tool to regenerate blightedurban and industrial areas is clearlyreasserted. Links can be establishedbetween urban transformation, new railtechnology and the siting of the stations.Reframed by the new challenges ofsustainable actions, energy transition,shrinking economies, the architecturaldesign of contemporary high-speedrailroad stations has undergone significanttransformation, that cannot be totallyascribed to the innovations of high speedtransportation. Today, following theprojects of the 1960s-80s that soughtto restore the continuity of the urbanfabric linking the project to public spacedesign, projects for stations are nolonger interested in evoking boulevards,ramblas or parvis. A new third generationof projects unifies zones that have beendivided for centuries with new linearurban parks covering kilometres oftracks, eschewing canonical figures suchas streets and squares, and drasticallysimplifying the architecture of the railroadstation, moving it underground.