Oslo T-Banen Stations

Oslo T-banen Stations And their identity

Ricardo Miguel Nunes Leal Norwegian Architecture - the theories and practices of the Norwegian architectural culture AHO 2007_FTHF3

1

Index

Introduction

3

Subway stations

4

Historical development

A Selection Of T-banen Stations

5

T-Banen Architecture

6

A description

Elements

9

Conclusion

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Bibliography

12

2

Introduction

This essay is a study on Norwegian architecture as represented by a single type of building – the T-banen station. It tries to relate to the station as architecture – serving function – as engineering and as works of art – expressing taste. It tries not to focus on stylistic sources but on significant creative elements. It also addresses functional and clear design both as a means of increasing public acceptance and as a means to relate or not with a “national identity” and integration with into the overall context of the city.

“In developed societies which require an underground tube system, most people are not simply satisfied with the pure utility value alone. They soon also want confort and expect the architecture to be an expression of the culture and prestige of their city, their religion and their country. Architects bear a great responsability in making the goal of architectural beauty of tube stations under limited conditions into reality.”1

Oslo's T-banen networks is composed of 88 stations total at this time. Because of the the extensive list I chose a few examples which I found to be representative of a certain architectural quality worth analyzing in order to illustrate some ideas. This choice is coincidental with major stations localized in the Sentrum, or “downtown” – Jernbanetorget and Stortinget – in the ring – Gønland, Tøyen and Carl Berners plass – the three newest T-banen stations – Nydalen, Storo and Sinsen – and one other worth mentioning – Romsås.

In the end the three more recent ones were the most focused both because of the quantity of information available and of the relevance of this type of facilities in the time-frame they were built.

Also, underground railway has been refered to by numerous names according

to

their

geographical

location.

Metro(politan),

Subway,

Underground and in Scandinavia Tunnel Banen – Metro being the least denominational of them all. I tried using these terms in a logical way even if they can be perceived as being interchangeable.

1 Nishino, Y. On the Interior Finish for Underground Stations. In The Railway Pictorial No. 519 (1989), November, p. 22. as cited in Jürgen, R. (1996). Die Architektur von UBahnhöfen. 11

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Subway stations Historical development

The underground railway is nowadays a reality in most major cities – it’s a part of the infrastructure just as motorways, cars, sewage or buildings are. It is associated with conurbation and the spread of suburbs. Oslo is no exception with it’s T-banen. Cities grow and so does it’s densities. Roads that were built for horse pulled carriages are now too narrow for the heavy traffic some cities possess. This isn’t the case with Oslo’s capital city. In fact, Oslo was for a while one of the smallest cities to posses this type of transportation. Traffic, although increasing doesn’t seem to be a problem even at “rush hours”.

But if Oslo is a small city in numbers - 553,396 people in the proper city as of July 2007 – after World War II it became one of the biggest European cities in area totaling now 454 Km2 but with only 115 Km2 of built area. The metropolitan area also known as Greater Oslo extends to 6,920 Km2 beyond city borders with a population of 1,121,020 people. Just as a comparison Greater London’s area is 1,577 Km2 but has 7,512,400 inhabitants.

It is no surprise that with this area growth came an extensive plan for Metro system with the assumption that it is no longer the car but the train that keeps a city alive.

Metro stations are one of the most discussed programs nowadays and can be seen as the modern continuation of the great railway tradition.

The first modern tunnel was excavated in 1840 under the river Thames in London and was opened on 1863. Cities where the underground has been working for more than a hundred years overcrowded it and have a relative poor service and changes require a deep transformation of those same railways involving great amounts of money. Oslo has the advantage of the late creation of the T-banen. It was opened in 1966 turning Oslo into the smallest city with a “full metro”.

But the questions that remain are: How is Oslo T-banen Station’s architecture different from the one in any other city’s subway stations? Can the identity of Norwegian architecture, whatever that may be, be found in Oslo’s T-banen stations?

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A Selection Of T-banen Stations

From 2005 the T-banen network consists in five lines all going through the city center. Originally there were only four lines opened in 1966 connecting the eastern suburbs of Oslo to the center. They were later joined by the existent tram lines in the west. There is an absence of tunnels in this side and all stations are above ground. The closing of the ring connecting Ullevål Stadion to Carl Berners Plass was achieved with the completion of the Sinsen station, opened to the public in 2006.

Jernbanetorget T-banestasjon was designed by Peer Qvam Arkitekter AS who also designed Gønland, Carl Berners plass and Tøyen stations – all underground and opened in 1966 as part of the line going from Jernbanetorget to Helsfyr.

Stortinget station opened in 1977 as part of the tunnel that would later connect Nationaltheatret and Jernbanetorget. All trains used to turn back at this station because of the different electrical systems used in both sides. It was designed by Håkon Mjelva who also designed Romsås station – opened in 1974. Mjelva, a Norwegian architect trained in Oslo, became associated with CIAM in the PAGON department. The architect was along with the engineer awarded the "Concrete board for outstanding construction" in 1976 with Romsås station.

Nydalen station was designed by Kristin Jarmund Arkitekter AS and opened in 2003. The architect trained in Norges tekniske høgskole i Trondheim and Architectural Association School of Architecture i London.

In the same year Storo station opened. It was designed by Jensen & Skodvin who also designed Sinsen station.

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T-Banen Architecture A description

Jernbanetorget

Jernbanetorget T-banestasjon possesses a brutalist structure in board-formed concrete including bas-reliefs by Odd Tandberg together with combinations of tile and stone. The floors are in Otta slate and the ceilings are of sheet-steel.

Silkscreened glass panels by Layla Haugan enhance the walls. Besides the reliefs and glass panels, this station's arcade also houses a vitrine called Kunstpassasjen which is used to display the works several artists. All of this contributes to the creation of experiences that compensate the lack of attractions in the underground world.

Gønland and Tøyen

Peer Qvam also designed Gønland, Carl Berners plass and Tøyen stations – all underground. Both are very different from Jernbanetorget T-banestasjon.

Gønland resembles a Paris Metro station by the use of white tiles. But Tøyen station’s interior walls are covered in clay brick arranged with different direction and causing a surprise effect when put parallel to an ascending ramp corridor. This use of clay can be tracked back to the Rådushet in which it is used as a decorative element by itself.

Romsås

Romsås station is dominated by an unplastered concrete ceiling cast under rock formation. The curved bridge over the tracks creates an interesting spacial experience.

Stortinget

At Stortinget station the walls are vaulted with trapezoid metal sheets in orange, red and light blue colors. Also the structure is visible by arches in dark blue which give the pedestrian passageway rhythm of regular intervals.

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Nydalen

Of all the three newest stations this is the only subterranean one. These new stations were built with a central platform, unlike all the other ones in which both tracks run down the middle with platforms in opposite sides.

It consists in a detached entrance pavilion on street level but the station is 12 meters underground. This subway station has a 110 m long platform with white granite flooring and a white lowered ceiling. There’s a contrast with the track area which is higher and has black concrete walls. This kind of contrast is proven to increase the legibility of a given space. The double row of columns are another element which enables the user to better read the space. It creates two perspective walls separating three naves – two static ones serving each track and a central corridor with a clear rout to and fro the stairway.

The entry pavilion on the street level is composed of vertical and horizontal planar elements of black basalt and glass. All vertical access is made between these elements. The entrance is marked by a red glass box which symbolizes the red metro wagons. The flat roof is covered with moss.

In Nydalen station the main escalator is was developed as an installation of sound, light and color. “Tunnel of Light” is based on 1,800 neon lights and 44 loudspeakers placed behind the enclosing glass surface. Each season has a distinctive mellow sound with particular light pattern sequence, which is triggered by sensors on the escalators in response to passenger movement.

The light design is by Per Åge Lyså, Intravision Group AS and the soundscapes were composed by Bjarne Kvinnsland, NOTOM. This soundscape has a relaxing effect at night.

Storo

This station is located on the highest point of the ring line and is inserted into the urban fabric in a low density area suffering from a big visual chaos. Storo also has connections with the Tram network and so the station design also had orientation issues associated. The access is made by concrete stairs and ramps on both sides of the Storo bridge. Even though it is an outdoor station it is completely covered. The roof is supported by glulam beams on two steel

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column rows. Steel is also used in the lighting elements and seatings. The main element of this station is the glass roof canopy which was used as a “canvas” for the artist Hilmar Fredriksen who decorated the roof transforming it into an urban art piece serving both as beacon and an orientating element. This superstructure which covers both ramps and stairs creates the station’s own identity.

Sinsen

This station is situated at a large public transport intersection with a large number of bus and tram routes. All public areas of the station are roofed and the roof is flat, covered with glass and felt and supported by two steel column rows. Protruding glass skylights break up the level roof and provide illumination and color to the light gray concrete walls.

In this work by Jensen & Skodvin we find the same materials used in Mortensrud Church and its 9 entrances were thought as different sites with their own identity and architectural expression.

In all three stations there was the choice of creatings transparent entrances which create visibility from the “door step” right into the platform “drawing the metro into the city as part of a living organism”2.

2

Jaap Huisman, Subterranean Existence – Architectonic exploration below ground level

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Elements

Just as entrances of earlier examples of metro architecture were recognizable beacons, attracting passengers into the platforms, so are modern metro buildings symbols in the surface hinting for the traffic usually bellow. Examples of this are the Metro of Paris’ art-nouveau porches or even London Underground’s signs. And so, the need for an expressive architecture is obvious in order to avoid having entrances unnoticed in the street scene. In recent metro enterprises the objective is to create multi functional, lighter and better organized and not only logical facilities– recent examples are Lyon, Bilbao or Porto.

But if in the examples given above there was a choice of homogeneity between station design the same is not a reality in the case of the T-Banen.

Station design differs from one to the other, responding to different site challenges. T-banen major stations – the ones in the ring and others like Romsås – are identifiable by their variety. The individual areas of the T-banen world are memorable for the different formal designs of its stations. And so it is possible for the passenger to get his bearings by the use of distinctive signs just as he can above the ground thought the variety of street facades. This is the same kind of variety one can find in Norway's dialects, traditional clothing, landscape or even city building.

In fact the shift of focus in metro architecture mentioned above hopes to create the sense of not being underground and deprived of direct sunlight so people will stay longer underground. 3 But the extension of Oslo being the problem the T-Banen addressed with it’s creation and not density, it is not surprising that only one new station was built underground. So the light issue here relates to it’s shaping and modeling more than it’s recreation.

In the twentieth century, the use of natural materials and unadorned high quality

concrete

became

widespread

among

Norwegian

architects.

Simplicity and quality is prized and natural light, which is at a premium in northern latitudes, is skilfully manipulated. This was also the period when Norwegian architecture started to make a name for itself abroad. Sverre Fehn

3

Jaap Huisman, Subterranean Existence – Architectonic exploration below ground level.

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brought the Nordic quality of light to Venice with the Nordic Biennial Pavilion in 1962.4

Jensen & Skodvin adress this challenge by covering both their stations. In Storo the use of glulam beams resembles the timber lattice of the chapel roof on the New Monastery for Cistercian nuns and in Nydalen the architects use the same materials they would use in Mortensrud Church such as the small cut stone and steel sheet roofing. Just like if the stations were a sort of experimental laboratory.

Storo Station

Anyway, in Nydalen Station, the one underground, the same international symbolic principles can be found in making on clearly marking the entrance with an exceptional element – the red glass box from which is possible to get a clear vision of the stairway leading to the platform.

New monastery for Cistercian Nuns

Sinsen Station

Mortensrud Church

4

Leslie Burgher on a talk given to ONFA in February 2003.

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Conclusion

It is possible to say that the ratio between underground and above ground stations in Oslo T-Banen – 73 to 15 – is a Norwegian property of it’s capital city metro system. There are other cities in the world with few underground stations in it’s metro as it is the case in Porto. But here that is caused by the lack of funds – using previous railway tracks – and the difficult modeling of the hard granite bed of the ground.

One might discuss whether this lack of underground venturing in Norwegian architecture is caused by the abundance of flat urban space, or by the traditional relationship of Norwegians with outdoor activities and of their architecture with site properties themselves.

In other hand if what Colquhoun says is true, “the use of local materials, sensitivity to context, scale” can only create the “idea” of a regional architecture and the “oversimplification of a complex cultural situation”.5 But Colquhoun also states in the same text that by usig the that strategy, architects don’t want to express any essence. What they want is to create unique and original pieces of architecture which relate to the context they are in.

If station architecture in Oslo’s T-banen isn’t representative of Norwegian architecture’s identity, at least it represents change which can be seen layers and read like a book. This because not only have architects lef behind their mark through their knowledge and their time but they also left something of their personality. By doing so, they transformed the T-banen into something unique and different from the metro railways of Paris, New York, or even Porto, reflecting the nation’s fortunes and aspirations.

5

Alan Colquhoun in The Concept of Regionalism

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Bibliography Books Jensen, J.A., Skodvin, B., Ellefsen, K.O., Sjaastad, M., & Vilray, E. (2007). Jensen & Skodvin Architects: Processed Geometries. Oslo: Unipax.

Bennett, D. (2004). Metro: the story of the underground railway. London: Mictchell Beazley.

Huisman, J. (2003). Subterranean Existence: Architectonic exploration below ground level. In Meijenfeldt, E. von, & Geluk, M. (Ed.), Below ground level: creating new spaces for contemporary architecture. (pp. 90-107). Basel: Birkhäuser.

Samwel, D. (2003). Through A Child’s Eyes: Perception under ground. In Meijenfeldt, E. von, & Geluk, M. (Ed.), Below ground level: creating new spaces for contemporary architecture. (pp. 90-107). Basel: Birkhäuser.

Grønvold, Ulf. (2002). Arkitekturmuseet : Bankplassen 3 / Sverre Fehn ... [og 4 andre artikler]. In Arkitektur i Norge: årbok (pp. 123-end). Oslo: Pax forlag.

Lawrence, D. (1994). Underground architecture. Harrow: Transport Publ.

Jürgen, R. (1996). Die Architektur von U-Bahnhöfen. Stuttgart : Krämer.

Magazine Articles Gronvold, Ulf. (2004, December). Norway: Fehn and his contemporary legacies. A+U: Architecture and Urbanism,12(411), 6-123.

Web Pages Oslo kommuneSamferdselsetaten. T-baneringen Site. Retrieved November 13, 2007, from http://www.samferdselsetaten.oslo.kommune.no/tbaneringen/information_in_english/

Statistisk sentralbyrå – Statistics Norway. (2007, July) Figures on Oslo Municipality. Retrieved November 16, 2007, from http://www.ssb.no/english/municipalities/0301

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