Architectural Speculation
II. A Wayside Halt for One
(a Terminus to many)
This body of work
was produced for the second round of the 60th Central Glass International Architectural Design Competition (Japan). Please refer to BC ‘Himana’ Train Station for the full view of the A2 panel submitted for the first round of the competition.
3D printing advice: Richard Bevan, via Anisa Sabiri.
Model and drawing photography: Anastasia Belinskaya.
This work is an attempt at existentialist architectural speculation.
Architecture is not merely an art of building, but an art of life — an art of organising time within space, and space within time. The space shown in the plan and the semi-perspective section is a product of imagination. Time here is uncertain, and depends upon the visitor.
As in life, it is not entirely clear how one arrives. It may be by train from the north or from the south; by boat from the east; or on foot, or on a horse or a donkey, through the mountains from the west, if they dare. Some spend only minutes here, and some millennia, as in a very deep dream. Equally unpredictable is the manner of departure.
Fig. 1
Plan fragment showing the western mountains.
The Station.
The Station occupies a crumbling plateau, shaped on one side by a railway cutting and on the other by a soil cliff. Eroded remains of raw-clay structures lie scattered across the ground.
Fig. 2
Section and plan of the eroded raw-clay structure adjacent to the Station.
Fig. 3
Model of a fragment of the central passage and the North Wing of the Station.
The station building consists of a passage and two wings. The North Wing is a dining hall for one (and, perhaps, an imaginary companion). Whenever one appears, the meal is already laid out and waiting. Most likely chicken and broccoli with a little soy sauce, and fresh coffee.
Fig. 4
Model of a fragment of the North Wing showing the dining area and the eroded raw-clay structure adjacent to the Station.
The position of the table and the chair allows one to see the locomotive’s exhaust plume, should it appear, and to be aware of other visitors whilst not being seen oneself.
Fig. 5
Plan fragment showing the main North Wing vista and a leaking pipe traversing the railway cutting.
Outside the North Wing stands a well, approximately twenty metres deep; its water also irrigates the garden, carried there by a leaking pipe wrapped in rags.
Fig. 6
Model of a well outside the North Wing.
The South Wing contains the so-called Roman Chamber. On its façade is a small fountain for washing and drinking.
Fig. 7
Model of a fragment of the South Wing showing the fountain and the Roman Chamber.
Further south lie a sparse vegetable garden and a lavatory, supplied with newspapers for reading and a brass pitcher for the washing of hands.
Fig. 8
The lavatory plan.
Both wings have their own stairways descending to the platform. A footbridge crosses the railway cutting.
Fig. 9
Model of a fragment of the Station façade and the footbridge over the railway cutting.
On the bridge, beside a leather chaise longue beneath a parasol, stands a coffee table with a large plastic ashtray, some crates with overseas goods, ceramic and silver vessels, and plants. Blankets and items of underwear hang from a washing line.
The Garden.
It could be a park or a graveyard. A graveyard is not built for the dead; it is built for the living, to allow them to stand on the shoulders of giants. The garden is intended to be walked in contemplation. A stone path may recall regional modernists, attentive to the many layers of context.
Fig. 10
Stone path and some of the ghostly remains of the Repose Teahouse.
The ghostly remains of the Repose Teahouse are suggested by twenty small circular mounds (marking the former columns of its canopy) and two rectangular mounds with fragments of stone and ceramic tiles (where pools once lay).
Fig. 11
Model of a fragment of the Garden, with one of the House with Acroteria columns and one of the Repose Teahouse circular mounds beneath the tree.
In the southern part stands the quarter-circular entrance to the former Vessel Hall, and the adjacent square with a young oak tree where the Six Modes mosaic once was.
Fig. 12
Model of a fragment of the remains of the Vessel Hall.
Fig. 13
Model of a fragment of the remains of the square with the Six Modes mosaic.
In the eastern part is a wall fragment with a semicircular niche. Together with a lone column at the western end of the path, it recalls an old estate arranged in the shape of St Anne’s Cross.
Fig. 14
Model of the wall fragment with semicircular niche.
A pair of smaller columns at the eastern end refers to the House with Acroteria. A palm tree grows beside a semi-circular protrusion of the garden plan.
Fig. 15
Model of a western fragment of the stone path with a Lone Column.
The Beach.
Upon the beach stands a silo, connected to the plateau by a metal bridge, presumably intended for vehicular use. The shaft is formed of curved concrete blocks with occasional steel-strip ties. Above it sits a structure of steel I-beams and square profiles, clad in narrow weathered planks, and fitted with a hoist beam. The roof sheeting is held in place by bricks and stones.
Fig. 16
Model of a fragment of the Silo.
The silo is filled with colourful river pebbles, invisible in the dark. A flimsy, rusty ladder descends to a small concrete platform on the beach. Traces of rainwater rivulets suggest that some objects are buried beneath the sand.
Fig. 17
Model of a lower part of the ladder.
A bar stool stands in the water slightly off the shore; one may walk out to it, as the water is not too deep. It is assumed that a boat might arrive and be moored to this solitary seat.
Fig. 18
Beach plan fragment with the indication of the unknown objects buried beneath the sand, and the bar stool on the right.
This station does not offer shelter from time, but measures it — in vistas, smells, and murmurs. Its objects and atmospheres are fragments of a larger order that forever eludes full apprehension. It stands as a vessel of the infinite present, holding the remains of what might have been and the anticipation of what might come.