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Abstract:
In this
research I would like to compare Berlin's Hauptbahnhof to other megastructures
in order to understand their relationship to modern urbanism. Megastructuralism
can be explained in three different steps showing its self-evolution from the
utopian housing concepts of the 1930´s to the megastations of the 21st century.
First step: megastructure as a
residential project. The beginning of the Megastructure era was related to the
residential housing project located along a highway from the modernist movement’s
“Fort l'Empereur project” (Le Corbusier, 1931) or Archigram's proposal link to
the new urban forms in a technological period known as "Lower Manhattan
Expressway” (Paul Rudolph, 1970).
Second step: megastructure as
institutional project. The use of large structures found its place in cultural
spaces such as “Centre Pompidou” (Piano, Rogers and Franchini, 1970) and in
workplaces of the post-industrial city described by Koolhaas in “Delirious New
York".
Third step: megastructure as
mobility, ecology and technology project. The modern society of the 21st
century has a never before seen demand for mobility. Today’s cities become more
and more machines of transportation. The combination of computer technology and
the challenges of the 21th century, produce a new kind of megastructuralism.
Berlin’s public transportation system is one of the Europa’s biggest train
stations: “Hauptbahnhof”.
In
this research it will show that Hauptbahnhof station must be seen as a new kind
of megastructure. In the future, cities will become more and more crowded;
hence space will have to be used more efficiently. Hauptbahnhof shows how space
can be used most efficiently if buildings grow into megastructures that
accommodate every possible function. The station is therefore a vast source for
models of densification that could lead to a sustainable urbanism in the
future.
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