Episode 41: The Crisis of Liverpool Street Station (EMERGENCY BROADCAST)

The 19th Century interior of Liverpool Street Station

This week John and Clive are frothing with disapproval at Network Rail’s plan to upgrade Liverpool Street Station.  It is proposed that this will be funded by a development which will impose an out-of-scale tower at the entrance to the station, which will deprive the concourse of natural light and destroy the surroundings.  What a pity.  Liverpool Street was brilliantly reimagined in the late 1980s, to make a virtually new station so much in the spirit of the old that many people assume that it is largely Victorian.  If only there was someone who could offer a design of similar sensitivity.  Fortunately there is!  John McAslan of John McAslan and Partners has come up with a spectacularly clever alternative scheme, fulfilling Network Rail’s objective at a fraction and far less environmental damage.

This is an emergency podcast.  The City Corporation are about to decide whether the Network Rail proposal gets planning permission.   John and Clive want McAslan instead.  Listen as they debate what makes really good railway station architecture and what makes it so important.