Mecanoo Turns the Delft Train Station into a Destination

The city of Delft welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors all year round. If it’s not tourists discovering authentic Delft Blue artefacts in blue-hued tin-glazed porcelain, then its commuting residents as well students from near and afar attending the world-renowned Delft University of Technology.

Since the tracks were first laid in the mid-1800s, train travel became an effective means of movement between cities as far away as Amsterdam and the Hague. Although well-connected to other cities in the Netherlands, Delft itself became divided by these tracks – and by an elevated viaduct in the ‘60s – enduring a barrelling train through its core nearly every five minutes. Accepted in the early 2000s, a proposal by Spanish architect Joan Busquets hoped to accommodate the region’s train growth while eliminating this eyesore.

Charged with the building’s expression, architectural practice Mecanoo was able to apply irreplaceable research acquired from its own design team’s commutes through the quaint, monumental station towards its concept for a new one. Upon receiving its first passengers in February 2015, Delft’s new station building has become a stage for a serendipitous choreography, isolating views of its historic station neighbour as well as streamlining circulation within the structure and its surrounding context.

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Photography courtesy of: Mecanoo.