After Liège-Guillemins station, one of his flagship projects completed in 2009, the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava (1) is still at work in Wallonia, with the opening to the public on 18 December of the new Mons stationMons, a Belgian town around thirty kilometres to the east of Valenciennes. However, its official inauguration is not scheduled until 31 December, during the Mons en Lumières Festival.
The SNCB - Belgian Railways - is breathing a sigh of relief, as its station is starting operations ten years late, originally scheduled for 2015 to coincide with the celebration of Mons as European Capital of Culture, then in 2018 and 2020. In the meantime, the cost of the building has soaredIn 2001, the first project to replace the 1950s station cost €35m, and the final project cost €480m. This extra cost is causing controversy in Belgium, especially as the new facility is not very user-friendly, offering only a few seats for passengers waiting for their train.
True to its airy, uncluttered style and the white colour of its steel structures, Santiago Calatrava has designed a footbridge station spanning the tracks, a railway cathedral 165 metres long, 15 metres wide and 16 metres high. Its five covered platforms will be used by 189 trains a day, serving Brussels in particular, and carrying 57,000 passengers a week. Fourteen of its forty or so arches will house the SNCB sales office, the TEC bus office, as well as service areas and shops.
A new multimodal station
Mons station has obviously been designed as a multimodal hub, providing passengers with access to the local bus network and the taxi rank of this city of 100,000 inhabitants. It also has an underground car park on the Place des Congrès side and some 350 spaces for bicycles. " The SNCB's objective was to make this new station, a true multimodal hub, sustainable, accessible and autonomous.said Tom Guillaume, SNCB Press Officer.
Mons station is now directly connected to Paris Gare du Nord in 2? hours with the Ouigo Train Classique service launched last Thursday. Thanks to a partnership between SNCB and SNCF Voyageurs, there are now three daily return trips between Paris-Nord and Brussels-Midi stations, with fares ranging from €10 to €59 one way.
(1) Santiago Calatrava is best known for the Cité des Arts et des Sciences in his home town of Valencia. He also specialises in building bridges and transport facilities, including the Oculus underground station at the foot of the World Trade Center in New York, and numerous railway stations. These include the Zurich Stadelhofen and Lisbon Oriente stations, the Lyon, Bilbao and Denver airports, and the Liège-Guillemins TGV station in Belgium.
