London's Waterloo Station is 175 this year. Named for a British military success, this most martial of London's terminii is more of a monument to the mixed record of British infrastructural planning. The station was not initially intended to be a terminus at all - for decades the line was to cross the river into central London. The bombastic Edwardian building built by JW Jacomb-Wood and AW Szlumper, with its 'Victory Arch' designed by JR. Scott after World War One, is the result of the defeat of this dream. An unintended terminus has been joined by an aborted terminus: Nicholas Grimshaw's marvellous Eurostar station, a high-tech monument at last back in use after being abandoned for St Pancras. I was thinking about this chequered history recently while passing Waterloo on a different railway, the one from Charing Cross that trundles across Waterloo's front porch, undercutting the grandeur of the Victory Arch. These railways don't intersect, but they used to, and the rail bridge that once connected them now carries another high-tech relic: the 1990s tubular metal walkway that links to Waterloo East station. Well used but not well loved, this curious jetway is now worse for wear. But it still has some futurist dash, not least in its confident defiance of context, a vacuum cleaner attachment slotted into a wedding cake.
展开▼
