Unique Intersections: Trains + Art

I mentioned the other day in my post about Seattle's King Street Station how my husband and I have found this growing interest in historic train stations.  It's where our love of art/architecture (me), history (both of us), and trains (him) intersect.

There have been a couple other recent instances of this cross-over.  Trains, for me, conjures up feelings of nostalgia and old-time romance with thoughts of the Oriental Express and James Bond so I love that these particular encounters are trains paired with very contemporary art:

During Nike Cave's Heard NY 30 "horses" pranced around Grand Central Terminal twice a day during the centennial celebrations for the building (again with the history!)  We did the audio tour that was produced for the occasion as well and that's when I went acorn hunting.  Cave is really known for his "soundsuits," you can check out one of these unique sculptures on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum or on their website.  The horses, also soundsuits, make a gentle rustling (see where that name comes from?) as they move about and the dancers within them animate their character.  One of my favorite aspects of the project was the instruction that each dancer imagine what their steed's identity would be and allow that to inform the movement.  It's impossible to watch and listen to these works in motion and not smile.  Their gentle movements remind me of Falkor from the Neverending Story or some gentle creature from the mind of Jim Henson. 

Leaving New York this Friday, September 6, Doug Aitken, known in DC as the artist with the video that played ON the Hirshhorn, leads a team of artists across the country in Station to Station.  I'm still confused as to what the artistic output will be as they travel from New York to Oakland, stopping along the way to pick-up and drop-off artists, and host parties featuring music and performances at each venue.  There are videos that Aitken produced before-hand and I imagine ones that will come together on board, all to be broadcast while traveling and artists will be on board creating works while in motion, and tweets going out from all along the way, there will be a lot going on.  When I first read about this I thought Aitken pieced together his nine-car train from all over, renovating them as he got them, and I thought that was a feat in and of itself.  But it looks like possibly six of them are rented from one group, the Friends of the 261, a railroading heritage group.  So if you weren't lucky enough to be able to go along on the Station to Station trip, you can at least see what the inside of some of the cars looks like.  They won't be configured as "Tech Central" or a recording studio and the historic preservation nut in me is silently screaming a little about Aitken scrapping "some of the original 18 sleeping berths" in the Minnesota River Sleeper car but we'll see what happens, having seen the aforementioned Hirshhorn project, Song 1, in 2012, I imagine Station to Station will be something amazing to watch if nothing else.

**Update on Station to Station - the train was parked in DC last night!  We were on our way back from an opening in Baltimore (on the train, of course) and whipped right past it parked north of Union Station.  We tried to get some pictures but they're pretty fuzzy. It's one of those times I wish I had a better camera.  Anyway, the large panels have become LED "zips" that run down the side of the cars. They were running like chasing Christmas lights.  I was hoping they'd change color like the concept drawing suggests, but maybe not until they actually have people on board.  We did decide they would look pretty awesome when the train is in motion and they don't detract from the historic nature of the train either. Check it out!

Seattle's New Old King Street Station

Anyone who knows my husband and I knows that we are train people.  My husband truly loves himself some trains and since we've been together we've somehow developed this mutual love of old train stations.  We travel by train a fair amount and whenever we're in different cities with historic station buildings, we make it a point to see them.  I guess this is a perfect union of our interest: trains and history and art. 

We were in Seattle recently, as I wrote about in this post, so we took time to go see the King Street Station, recently restored to it's former glory, as you can see in this postcard from circa 1912. 

There is a great "before and after" on the Seattle Department of Transportation website.  It's very detailed and shows the scope of the project.  There was major construction inside and out, in almost every area of the building, from the terrazzo floors to the clock room. 

It's wonderful that this train station wasn't just torn down or completely stripped inside.  There are many disasters of that kind, such as the original Pennsylvania Station in New York, lost (demolished) in the 1960s.

Although towers were reinforced, more tenant space was created, brick work and the plaza outside were cleaned up, and an entire escalator was torn out, the main waiting room in the King Street Station is the true gem of this restoration.  If you look at the "before" image, the drop ceiling and plain white walls hide the ornamental plaster ceiling and an entire second story.  They say that the walls are actually "replicated" so possibly they were too damaged to be salvaged, but the ceiling is original as are the second story windows and now that they're uncovered, they can be used for ventilation.  I love the tile work that was added around the columns and the walls.  Also the re-use of other spaces such as storage and baggage rooms allowed the Amtrak ticketing office and baggage carousel to be moved so that now, the main waiting room can be fully used by passengers and loved ones.

It's so heartening when you see a good restoration, something that easily cost millions of dollars to do, completed despite the price, instead of just razing it to the ground and building a white box.  My husband and I both love history (maybe that's why we live in a 19th century house) and mourn for the buildings we see torn down or in disrepair.  But we especially love this new passion for old train stations, I'm sure you'll see some more posts on this topic in the future!