Big Metal Swirl – King’s Cross Station, Euston Road, London, England

From the Guardian Newspaper (March 17, 2012):

The big metal roof is as deeply ingrained in British architectural tradition as thatched cottages and stone churches. The idea was invented for greenhouses, then applied to the great Victorian railway stations and to the Crystal Palace, that wondrous achievement of scale and ingenuity, whose mythic power is made all the greater by the fact that it no longer exists. Big metal roofs speak of confidence and boldness and of the time of this country's greatest industrial might.
With the new western concourse at King's Cross station, designed by John McAslan and Partners, the big metal roof is coming home. Meanwhile, the original glass roof has been cleaned up and had its glass restored, while unnecessary clutter in the space below has been removed, making it more bright and airy than it has looked at any time since it opened, 160 years ago. The effect is dazzling, of seeing this familiar, eternally grubby place transformed. It is as if you had just popped a perception-enhancing pill or been granted an extra faculty of sight.

But the main event of the new work is the half-cylinder of the new concourse and its roof, which has a span of 52 metres. Its structure, engineered by Arup, rises up a great steel stalk in the centre and then spreads into a tree-like canopy of intersecting branches, before descending into a ring of supports at the circumference. In so doing, it avoids the need to drop columns into the ticket hall of the underground station underneath the main space. Beneath the canopy, a sinuous pavilion in glass and tile takes care of the retail.

"It is the greatest station building, ever," declares architect John McAslan, who is not shy of speaking things as he sees them, and it is certainly impressive. Its main effect is a mighty oomph as you enter, from whatever direction, caused by the abundance of space and the unity of the structure. It is big and single-minded and has a generosity to which we have grown unused.