A műemlékek sokszínűsége (A 28. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1998 Eger, 1998)

Előadások / Presentations - KUBINSZKY Mihály: Preservation of railway monuments

MIHÁLY KUBINSZW PRESERVATION OF RAILWAY MONUMENTS* Architectural history only extended its scope of interest to the modern age a couple of decades ago. Since 1970, attempts have been recorded to protect some of the outstanding modern age architectural assets. These have affected buildings with different functions including railway buildings, which are an interesting topic for the history of technology as well. Railway buildings and station buildings are both umbrella terms. Between simple railway stops and big city railway halls, the difference in scale is like the one between a mountain chapel and a city cathedral in sacral architecture. What is more, architectural heritage includes far more than just the above-mentioned, most well-known, passenger buildings. It includes trackmen's houses, storage buildings, engine houses, interlocking towers, water houses and a whole range of other interesting operational buildings. They are the ones most threatened by demolition and destruction due to technical development.Hence, technical development is causing further problems in monument protection. At the 3rd conference on the preservation of railway monuments held recently in Germany by ICOMOS, many good examples of reconstruction perfectly in line with the criteria of classical conservation were presented. They included the reconstruction of Gare du Nord in Paris, the Anvers station, Cologne's Hauptbahnhof located at the foot of the Cologne cathedral and other city stations. Having said this, the changes expected to affect railway technology and railway building in Germany's big cities may hardly be reconciled with the substantial purposes of monument protection. At Stuttgart's main station, for instance, bound to be preserved as a historic monument, Paul Bonatz's famous beginning-of-the-20th-century work is going to lose its ties with the railway i.e. the basis of its architectonic concept: the tracks are planned to run deep under the building, perpendicular to their current direction. The railway lines will also be lowered in Frankfurt. Is that what you call monument protection? The preservation of railway architecture has now become a world-wide concern. It is fortunate that, back in 1987, MAV (Hungarian State Railways) introduced its own internal regulations prepared with the involvement of those in charge at the National Supervisory Board for Historic Monuments. As a result, a good many fine old buildings have been saved. In England, old railway buildings have always been highly respected. It is a pity that London Euston Arch was an exception to the rule, and was pulled down in the 1960s for commercial reasons, despite loud protest by architects and the public. A major part of the old buildings are, still, surviving. Another important aspect is that England has a virtually complete written record of old railway buildings. The first book ever on the preservation of railway monuments was also published in English in 1997. In illustration of his paper, the speaker first presented his own photos of Budapest's Nyugati (Western) station, taken well before its reconstruction in 1958, now of documentary value. When the station was re* The author's summary of the paper delivered on 30 June, 1998 at the Eger Summer University