Stockholm Central Station in Sweden by Tengbom Architects

Article source: Tengbom Architects

250,000 people pass through Stockholm’s central station on a daily basis. If you were one of them, you would not have missed all the development that has been going on here between 2008-2014 – and a station that has been fully functional the entire time.

In 2008, we were asked by Jernhusen to modernize and develop large parts of Stockholm’s Central station – one of Sweden’s most important crossroads – and make it possible for the station to manage the challenges of both today and tomorrow. Not least the constantly increasing number of travellers. Due to the requirement for many separate improvements, we were given the opportunity to develop a thorough concept for the development.

”Our vision was to improve the experience of the visitors through modernization and design that exceeded their expectations and at the same time preserve and highlight the fine qualities of the old building”, says Mark Humphreys, chief architect.

Image Courtesy © Åke E:son Lindman

• Architects: Tengbom Architects
• Project: Stockholm Central Station
• Location: Stockholm, Sweden
• Photography: Åke E:son Lindman

Image Courtesy © Åke E:son Lindman

A meeting place that offers the unexpected

Jernhusen wanted Stockholm’s Central station to fulfil its potential as a meeting place for people from around the world. A modern travel centre with exceptional service, shops and restaurants that is safe, easy to navigate, accessible and where the environment and the details make a lasting impression on the visitors. To translate Jernhusen’s vision required a holistic approach but we also saw the opportunity to define some special areas that offer the visitors unexpected experiences.

Image Courtesy © Åke E:son Lindman

It has been said that one of the easiest ways of judging a building is by visiting its toilets. To design very nice toilets felt obvious to us. Inspired by the romantic, Swedish landscape motifs that are painted on the walls of the Central Hall, we wanted to enhance the experience of being a traveller here too. With accents of wood, white glass and the picture of a sparkling fireplace, the design of the toilets is an abstraction of winter in the mountains – the cottages, snow and ice.

Image Courtesy © Åke E:son Lindman

To let new art enhance places that would otherwise be boring and dead also offers something unexpected. We chose to decorate the empty space between the new stairs and the escalators that today lead from the north hall up to the City terminal. We were looking for a dynamic and digital experience and the choice was the artists Bigert and Bergström. Their installation, which shows tomorrows weather through atmospheric molecules of various colour were developed in consultation with us so that it can relate to the architecture in a seamless manner.

The third aspect is the new serving spaces. In the north hall, we designed a calm area which all guests can use, screened off through a low white wall from white composite material offering an open visual sight line both for the navigability and for security reasons.

Image Courtesy © Åke E:son Lindman

Structural limitations – creative solutions

For the commuters of Stockholm, the largest change is probably the development we have initiated of the spaces under the Central Hall. Much of the structure is load bearing in this part of the station and the development has been limited to the actual measurements. To give the travellers a new, positive impression we have instead used a number of architectural tricks.

Image Courtesy © Åke E:son Lindman

We wanted to create a light, airy and calming environment but could not change neither the width of the passage nor the height of the ceilings. A smooth, new fixed ceiling in white that softly arches up towards the Ring (the famous opening in the joists that connect the surface with the Central Hall above) and round recessed light sources that give the ceiling a hollow effect became part of the solution. Circle symbolism contained in the ring design is also found, for example, in the contrast marking of the windows and the rounded corners on the surface of new wall sections. The streamlined environment, without sharp edges and corners, creating natural flows that leads the travellers on.

Image Courtesy © Åke E:son Lindman

In order to let in as much natural light at possible and improve the instinctive navigability, we have increased the vertical communication opening up two further openings where stairs and escalators today lead up to the Central Hall. We also opened up existing load bearing walls as much as possible and created open shopping areas where the commerce area has been withdrawn one meter from the passage so that it feels wider and airier. 

Image Courtesy © Åke E:son Lindman

Minimalist details enhance the listed building

Our starting point in the Central Hall was to highlight the qualities of the old building. The remaining parts of the Central station from 1871 and the Central Hall are listed which means that we may not distort or change the area. We used a minimalist approach with a lot of glass and slender steel detailing. In this way, great changes have been made but the atmosphere has been kept. The many new shops and restaurants offer a wide range of products adapted to the travellers’ specific needs. In our role as architects, we have been consultants when it comes to what commercial players should be offered space. We have also developed a detailed design manual for the tenants where we were inspired by one of the station’s historic shop signs.

Tags: Stockholm, Sweden

Categories: Metro Station, Mixed use, Restaurant, Shop, Station

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