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What Happens When You Let Top Architects Design Bus Stops
United Kingdom Architecture News - May 21, 2014 - 10:58 4736 views
The Belgian firm Architecten De Vylder Vinck Taillieu designed an angular shelter inspired by a Sol LeWitt painting.© 2014 ADOLF BEREUTER
KRUMBACH, AUSTRIA, (POP. 1,000) COMMISSIONED WORLD-RENOWNED ARCHITECTS TO REDESIGN ITS RUSTIC BUS STOPS. WAITING FOR THE BUS HAS NEVER BEEN SO GLAMOROUS.
Residents of the tiny Austrian village of Krumbach (population: 1,000) now get to wait for public transportation in style. Last year, the village’s cultural association reached out to acclaimed architecture firms to design unique bus stops that would be built by local craftsmen.
An international array of architects, including Pritzker Prize-winning Chinese architect Wang Shu and his partner Lu Wenyu, Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto, and Chile’s Smiljan Radic, fashioned elegant bus shelters for Krumbach. In exchange for the usual fee, the village offered the architects a vacation in the surrounding Bregenzerwald region, which boasts a rich architectural history.
Norwegian firm Rintala Eggertsson Architects designed a shelter near a tennis court that doubles as a spectator stand. © 2014 ADOLF BEREUTER
Sou Fujimoto’s bus stop is an open structure of steel rods with a staircase leading up to panoramic views of the village. © 2014 ADOLF BEREUTER
The seven new shelters, inaugurated this month, are a far cry from the drab awnings that most bus riders have to sit under. While some cities in the U.S., such as Santa Monica, are working to make waiting for the bus a more aesthetically pleasing experience, plenty of bus stops still lookpretty gross. In Krumbach, waiting for the bus has been transformed into high art....Continue Reading
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