LADOZHSKY RAILWAY STATION

Authors of the project:

Architects: Nikita Yavein, Vladimir Zenkevich, Vasily Romantsev, Janna Razumova

Project team: Elena Barikina, Irina Golysheva, Grigory Ivanov, Irina Krylova, Lyudmila Kutuzova, Alexander Medvedev, Sergey Sologub, Elizaveta Fokina

Structural designers: Yury Bondarev, Irina Liashko, Irina Gracheva, N. Kozlova, E. Khlybova

Ladozhsky railway station is the sixth railway station in St.-Petersburg and the only one designed for through trains. It was built for the city’s 300th anniversary. The narrowness of the plot did not permit construction of the building in the traditional way – along the railway tracks. It was necessary instead to build it under and over the platforms without interrupting the movement of trains.

In this very difficult situation, the concepts of the "railway station-bridge" and the "railway station-tunnel" were realized for the first time anywhere in Russia or the world. The station for long-distance trains was built above the railway lines as a concourse; and the station for local trains was placed below ground level, whilst the ground level was totally given over to transport.

All three levels were connected vertically both functionally - with stairs, access ramps, escalators, and visually - by large light shafts. The physical lines for movement of passengers, transport, and luggage were realized as flying consoles and small bridges, transparent covers of lifts and crossings. They run throughout the space of the railway station and form a layer of 21st century imagery. But on this does not give us the full meaning of the building: the interior of the main hall has some of the familiar features drawn from a range of sources: from railways stations and platforms of the late 19th century to the Roman thermal baths and triumphal arches which inspired their designers.

As result, the range of possible readings became even wider than these starting points. For some the crossing arches and the contours of metallic trusses may remind them of Diocletian’s thermae, for others, it may be Gothic cathedrals. Also the three-nave facade of the building with stained glass windows in the arches under triangular roofs between two "fortress" towers is associated not only with St. Petersburg’s neoclassical buildings, but also with the inhabited bridges of West European cities.

Data
Capacity of railway station: 4200 persons (3400 passengers for long-distance trains and city transport + 800 passengers for local trains)
Total area: 33 076 sq. m
Footprint area – 17 200 sq. m
Structural volume – 172 700 cub. m, out of there: underground space – 5 800 cub. m
Number of storeys – 2-4 (main building)
Building height – 26,45 (maximum)