Scholars: Can anyone tell me who was the first person to refer to the train station (or railway station) as "the cathedral of the nineteenth century"? I'm looking for the origins of this expression. Thanks. - ThreadSky

jaygeller.bsky.social • 43 days ago

Scholars:
Can anyone tell me who was the first person to refer to the train station (or railway station) as "the cathedral of the nineteenth century"?

I'm looking for the origins of this expression.

Thanks.

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ustinoff.bsky.social•42 days ago

In 1895, the German Architects made such statements about the colonial style of British built rail stations in India.
https://books.google.de/books?id=8Zfp6BccEb4C&pg=PA424&dq=%22bahnh%C3%B6fe%22+%22kathedralen%22+before:1930&hl=de&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiTrdLX6PiKAxUvSvEDHWVUIn0Q6AF6BAgGEAI#v=onepage&q=%22bahnh%C3%B6fe%22%20%22kathedralen%22%20before%3A1930&f=false

jaygeller.bsky.social•42 days ago

Interesting. I also found that the the French writer Théophile Gautier called train stations "the cathedrals of the new humanity."

ustinoff.bsky.social•42 days ago

Yes. At the end of 19. century, they had this idea that the European society in the (late) medieval time was completely built on religious thinking and religious ideals and that the Gothic cathedrals were the outer sign of this.

ustinoff.bsky.social•42 days ago

Then they noticed that with the renaissance and later developments religion was no longer the central topic of societal organisation. The symbol for secularisation and industrialization was the railways. In this sense they asked: "Are train stations our cathedrals?"

chbarts.bsky.social•40 days ago

Kind of off to one side, I found something saying William Morris called iron steamships the cathedrals of the nineteenth century:

jaygeller.bsky.social•40 days ago

In general, it’s interesting that cultural critics used cathedrals as a reference point. I’ve also seen the glass-covered arcades in Paris and London referred to that way.

jaygeller.bsky.social•40 days ago

That’s very interesting. Strictly from a source critique perspective, it’s someone saying that Morris said that, without actually providing the reference.

bmleitner.bsky.social•43 days ago

Maybe Wolfgang Schivelbusch? In "The Railway Journey: Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century", 1977.

jaygeller.bsky.social•43 days ago

I looked, and I did not see it in there.

jaygeller.bsky.social•40 days ago

I think I have an answer.
The CONCEPT was first proposed in 1875 in the journal _The Building News_. However, the EXACT EXPRESSION was first used in 1951 by Hitchcock Henry-Russell in the journal _The Architectural Review_.

jaygeller.bsky.social•40 days ago

Unsigned, "Railway Architecture--A New Gothic Station," _The Building News_ (6 August 1875): 133.

Hitchcock Henry-Russell, "Brunel and Paddington," _The Architectural Review_, vol. 109, no. 652 (1 April 1951): 241.

jaygeller.bsky.social•40 days ago

When later scholars use the expression with quotation marks and expressly cite _The Building News_, they are almost certainly relying on Henry-Russell and assuming that his use of the expression is a quotation from _The Building News_, without bothering to check for themselves.

jaygeller.bsky.social•40 days ago

It is extraordinary that same man who coined the expression "the International Style" (for modern architecture in the style of the Neues Bauen) also coined the phrase "cathedrals of the nineteenth century."

ustinoff.bsky.social•40 days ago

Thank you. Very interesting.

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