RE: (rshsdepot) Dresden Station

["Karen L. Lindsey" <kwillowby_@_kermantel.net>]

>>>>>Here is a post-modern touch...somehow this station survived the
bombing/fire storms near end of WW II, and here since the West German
Mark came to Dresden in 1990, a Burger King intrusion..does it add or
subtract from the view or is it just that fin de sieclé new millenium
touch that future historians will love?:>>>>>>>

An interesting and rather amusing question. :)   Depends on your
definition of "art," I suppose.  It reminds me of the old "Mail Pouch
Tobacco" signs painted on the sides and roofs of barns here in the US.
Ugly, intrusive, and garish, they are now prized as nostalgic examples
of early 20th century commercial art and even more so since few
authentic examples now remain.  While it is hard for me to imagine the
obnoxious sign tacked onto the Dresden station as an example of fin de
siecle art, who knows?  Maybe future generations will long for the days
when Burger King signs graced their public architecture...

Of course, commercial art and design has long had a place in and on
railway stations.  When you look at old photos of the London
Underground, for instance, you see many posters and so forth advertising
various things.  Although I can imagine other things I'd rather see when
experiencing a rail station, they DO serve their purpose of helping to
subsidize the station's (and rail line's) existence, so I've never
complained much.  Still, I am quixotic enough to wish that some of the
advertisers showed a little more aesthetic sense when designing their
large public-display advertising for rail and bus depots; grease-laden
fries don't add much at Dresden, do they?

Blake H. Lindsey 

Kerman, CA, Just down the block from Kerman Yard, SJVR (which has no
depot, Burger King-graced or otherwise, alas...)

___________________________________________

Cool your heels on the rail of an observation car. Let the engineer open
her up for ninety miles an hour. Take in the prairie right and left,
rolling land and new hay crops, swaths of new hay laid in the sun.  A
signalman in a tower, the outpost of Kansas City, keeps his place at a
window with the serenity of a bronze statue on a dark night when lovers
pass whispering.  

(Carl Sandburg, "Still Life")





=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

------------------------------

End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #777
*******************************

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org