Railways have trumped air travel with better-designed terminals that are the epitome of contemporary democracy.
The oath that grounded the French Revolution took place in a tennis court; revolutions used to take place on boulevards and public squares. Perhaps the next forms of democracy will appear from a flash mob among commuters under the sweeping arches and roofs of one of these new stations.
We are living in a new Terminal Age. Not since trunk lines erected their ornate termini in European cities in the third quarter of the 19th century have we seen so much investment in the architecture of mass-transit hubs centred on railroad lines.
From the curves of UNStudio's Arnhem Station and Benthem and Crouwel's prow for Rotterdam in the Netherlands, to the newly developed King's Cross and Alejandro Zaera-Polo's Birmingham New Street Station, and from the finally completed, Calatrava-created PATH station at Ground Zero in New York to the high-speed train station Andrew Bromberg has designed for Hong Kong, spectacular new structures are arching over trains, buses and – what is just as important – shopping malls that catch commuters on their way to and from work. Airports are so 'naughts. Railroad stations are our new public palaces of connection.
....