The Liège Guillemins Railway Station in the city of Liège, is an important node in the European high speed rail network. It forms a link between London, Paris, Brussels and Germany.
The architect Santiago Calatrava designed the new station that has been opened in 2009.
The station is made of steel, glass and white concrete. It includes a monumental dome, 200 meters long and 35 metres high. It has 9 tracks and 5 platforms (three of 450m and two of 350m). All the tracks around the station have been modernized to allow high speed arrival and departure.
The design is characterized by transparency and an openness to the city. The traditional facade is replaced by a huge glass building, which establishes a seamless interaction between the interior of the station and the city.
Calatrava's style has been heralded as bridging the division between structural engineering and architecture. In the projects, he continues a tradition of Spanish modernist engineering that includes Félix Candela and Antonio Gaudí. Nonetheless, his style is also very personal and derives from numerous studies of the human body and the natural world (source: Wikipedia).
