Kyoto Station
Kyoto Prefecture, Japan • Travel
Kyoto Station is the gateway to history," according to the full scope of Hiroshi Hara's design intent. The architecture of Kyoto Station encompasses everything in a single phrase. Like the city layout of the Heian period, which is still vividly marked today, history is a geography. The proposal here was to conceptualize the entrance as the ultimate expression of a <geographical central square>. Many people will pass through this central square, measuring 27m in width, 60m in height, and 470m in length, which is a representation of Japan's traditional aesthetics. The station had to be covered with a glass shelter that represents "the presence and absence of boundaries." The station is a place where people wait for the scene of looking at "the sky," and the entrance's formation is also a design of Kyoto's sky. The <matrix> supports the entrance and is the stratum of the air. On top of this, the station, commercial complexes, convention halls, culture, and parking lots, among other finely segmented elements, continue to exist in relation. The Renaissance conceived the matrix as the mother of all things, which became the new world map, and finally, the railway ran. This history represents the gathering and dispersal of people and stands for the architecture of the machine age. This proposal positions the <matrix> as a piece of Kyoto city's origin and modernly inherits the tradition of historical architecture, planning various meeting paths. The northern facade, while outwardly a gate, is viewed from the square as being in a dark shadow. In the proposal, a brightly shining facade is expressed, and the building disappears and appears simultaneously overlapping with the northern sky, never allowing people to see the same shape twice. The building is distinguished into a matrix and concourse, the latter being the central square. The main hall of the station, named the matrix, displays a grid layout while the concourse provides the feeling of a vast open space with stairs and escalators extending east and west. Observing the building feels like a mix of various design languages. The multitude of structures, glass, concrete, and changes in form and pattern, offer users a new experience. Especially, the sky bridge connecting the east and west and the grand staircase on the west side make the station not just a place to pass through but a public space.
