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Despang Architekten	Metro halts	Hanover, Germany	December 1999
An ingenious structure and different claddings give stations on the new Hanover metro a sense of place. Click on image to view larger version in new window
Hanover 2000 promises to be the most thoughtful celebration of the Millennium, with the best architectural talents in the world required to make each country’s pavilion so that it can be taken down and recycled. To cope with the huge influx of visitors expected, Hanover decided to build a new metro line. Martin Despang won the limited competition for new station halts with a design which is simple, yet capable of variation to suit individual places. Fundamentally, it is an RHS steel frame which supports a slab, out of which a hollow is carved to accommodate a long seat. The frame is stabilized by being related to the platform’s steel and concrete structure. To each side of the wooden bench, 19mm security glass planes rise vertically, and there is a glass canopy above, shielding seated passengers from the elements. The glass is restrained and supported by a tubular steel portal which, like the main frame, bears on the platform structure. The halts (perhaps better thought of as part of the bus station family than as conventional stations) are designed with narrow ends towards oncoming traffic, so waiting passengers can see approaching trains. Advertising and information spaces are carefully installed in each halt, and it is to be hoped that posters will be kept in place. Each station is clad in material intended to be sympathetic to its locality: patinated copper, glass blocks, metal mesh and so on. Billie Tsien was originally worried about the reduction of materials to cosmetic skins, but she was persuaded that they will give a sense of place to each station and a notion of progression to journeys. Architect Despang Architekten