An old station with a modern touch

The station is near the border with Germany swissinfo.ch

Swiss Federal Railways has found a pragmatic way of making Kreuzlingen Harbour station economically viable.

The new station located next to the pier is a successful example of how to meet the demands of a modern station and succeed aesthetically while respecting the fabric of the building.

From the café at Kreuzlingen Harbour railway station one sees a train rumble by occasionally. Otherwise, there is an unobstructed view of the tracks and the footpath leading to the Lake Constance ferries.

What appears to be a small regional station actually boasts its own international harbour. Next stop: Germany.

Most of the bright and colourful trains coming and going at the station belong to the Federal Railways subsidiary, Thurbo. Forced to cut costs, the company decided four years ago to transform the building into an unmanned station.

“It’s a problem we are facing across Switzerland,” project leader Christian Kümin told swissinfo. “In this case we chose to make the station multifunctional.”

The redevelopment undertaken by the Federal Railways included the renovation of the old station building and a contemporary extension.

Shop

The newspaper kiosk was replaced by a shop with longer opening hours than usual, and a small bistro. The shop staff also sell train tickets.

The redevelopment only went ahead on the precondition that the storage shed, the station building and small washroom building were kept.

“The annex was necessary to meet the new demands of the station,” said Toni Häfliger, head of the Federal Railways conservation division.

“Our goal was to create a dialogue between the different architectural styles. There was no sense in making everything look old when we could take advantage of the excellent possibilities offered by contemporary design,” he said.

Cube

The winner of the architectural competition, Christoph Göldi, added a simple cube-shaped structure to the 130-year-old station. “The idea was to make clear the division between old and new,” he explained.

“The façade of the station building has many embellishments, while the cube is simple and low-key. We made a conscious decision not to use wood or metal for the new structure.

“The materials we did use accentuate the differences. Sandstone represents the historical aspect of the station, and the large windows and exposed concrete stand for contemporary architecture,” he added.

“There is little to differentiate the sandstone from the concrete, so we decided to paint the latter dark grey.”

Göldi also faced the challenge of taking into account all the various demands of the renovated station: railway passengers required easy access to the tracks, the shop needed as much shelf space as possible for its goods, and the conservators demanded a spatial separation between the contemporary annex and the old building.

Quadratic

“We chose austere quadratic dimensions and so the shop had to make do with shorter racks than normal,” Göldi said of his accomplishment.

“That meant we were able to create a more coherent space between the new structure and the washrooms. And the track access is well-marked and transparent.”

The storage shed, station building and washrooms form a unit. “Now, all the buildings are lined up together. The operator of the shop wanted it closer to the road, but that would have disrupted the unit,” Göldi argued.

But the open space the conservators demanded be left between the new and old structures meant that the architect had to find a way to make them part of the same whole, and the shop in the cube would somehow have to be connected to the old station’s warehouse.

“After much discussion, all the participants involved in the process were satisfied with the solution,” said Häfliger. The question was how to form a bridge visually.

“The decision was taken to do this by placing a thin covering over the surface area, which binds but separates the two buildings,” he said.

swissinfo, Andreas Keiser in Kreuzlingen

In brief

The renovated and expanded station complex in Kreuzlingen was inaugurated in December 2004.

The old station building dates back to 1871.

The shops are part of a joint venture between the Federal Railways and retailers, Migros and Kiosk AG.