Architecture

Building an Icon: Park Station

  • Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.
    Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.|
  • Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.
    Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.|
  • Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.
    Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.|
  • Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.
    Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.|
  • Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.
    Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.|
  • Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.
    Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.|
  • The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.
    The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.|
  • The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.
    The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.|
  • The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.
    The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.|
  • The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.
    The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.|
  • The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.
    The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.|

WORDS Vedhant Maharaj PHOTOS Mark Straw, Transnet Heritage Library Photo Collection

Next in our series celebrating classic South African buildings, architect Vedhant Maharaj pays tribute to an often-overlooked but enduringly graceful spectre of the Johannesburg landscape – the old Park Station.

In my first year of architecture school, after a terrible critique from a tyrannical examiner, I drowned my sorrows by 1. buying a quart of beer; and 2. drinking it as I sat sketching the old Park Station in the hazy Joburg dusk. The sketchbook in question has, like many others, either been lost, gone into hiding or, perhaps more ironically, been left on a train…

The basics

Arriving as a kit-of-parts (like many inner-city buildings of the time), the old Park Station travelled from a foundry in Amsterdam to the booming mining town of Johannesburg. Designed by Dutch architect and railway engineer Jacob Frederik Klinkhamer, the 255m-long transit structure was opened in 1896 – and then, as the city rapidly grew, was removed in 1951 to make way for the new Park Station. Today, the ghostly shell welcomes you to the city as you enter from Braamfontein over the Nelson Mandela Bridge, its stripped and patinaed figure acting as a fitting gatehouse to inner-city Joburg.

Historically speaking

Park Station – archival image
Today, the old Park Station structure is perched on a concrete slab alongside Johannesburg’s Nelson Mandela Bridge and Brickfields Social Housing Precinct. As the archival images show, in the early 20th century – and at its former location off Rissik Street – the building bustled with travellers, and housed shops and a restaurant.

The Nederlandsche Zuid-Afrikaansche Spoorweg-Maatschappij, responsible for South Africa’s railway network at the time, decided to create an elaborate statement that embodied a powerful future and stately Johannesburg. They planned to turn the original Park Halt, a tin shed structure built in 1890 on the Rand Tram line, into a new grand station. The original design was a more intricate building, with an impressive entrance, and halls, atriums and offices, but the budget was slashed, as is customary in most building projects. A retrospective view of this is that it may have been for the best – again, a fitting age-old architectural trope.

Not many people know that…

The old Park Station is not in its original position. It is easily one of the most well-travelled buildings in the world: beyond its trip from Europe to Africa, the Dutch structure has also been a nomad within its Highveld landscape. Now located a kilometre east of its original location on the site of the current Park Station, it took a sabbatical for more than four decades at the railway school in Esselen Park, where it served as a training facility, before almost returning to its original home.

READ MORE: Building an Icon: Disa Park

As with the (de)tours of many a rock star, this sojourn led to the station losing some of itself along the way – nine of its 21 bays remain at Esselen Park. If completed, the building would utilise the full expanse of the key-stoned concrete plinth it perches on today.

At its zenith

As a bustling intersection of Johannesburg life, the station was known for its Station Bar and Buffet. It became a prestigious spot for meetings along the mining railway lines. As you had to buy a ticket to use the restaurant even if you weren’t using the train, it gained the reputation of an elite location, complete with solid timber panelling and high-end finishes.

READ MORE: Building an Icon: The Carlton Centre

Beyond suburban passenger transport, Park Station also became an aorta for the transportation of goods – especially coal from the East Rand – and connected multiple Johannesburg routes for the first time. This facilitated a boom in the city’s coal- and gold-mining industries. The structure also played a pivotal role in both World Wars and the South African War (Anglo- Boer War), trafficking soldiers and refugees alike.

Why we love it

Nothing screams old Joburg like a bit of broekielace. Even though it’s a utilitarian and infrastructural building, the old Park Station is not shy of delightful details. The components of the structure were cast in the prestigious Pletterij Den Haag iron foundry, and condescend the rudimentary intersections of standard steel sections and connections readily used today.

READ MORE: House of Legends: Creating Coromandel

The intricate castings carry through the ornate Dutch Neo-Renaissance style and add a decorative touch to the building. In this case, the gaudy sensibility works, and the elaborate column heads, the tapered steel beams and the lacy arches – all designed as part of the structure – make it impossible to strip the delicate beauty out of this building.

The state of play today

Park Station – external view today
The striking decorative ironwork of the station, still visible today, was once juxtaposed with other elements of a working train station and daily commuter life – train tracks teeming with steam locomotives, cars dropping off passengers, seating for travellers, retail advertising, and even a platform clock.

This mostly sleeping dog is occasionally awoken by the presence of DJs and a dance party. Once or twice a year, maybe, a big corporate peddling its product with an event and a catchy hashtag uses the building as a venue to build alternative street cred. Day to day, its front yard is a transitional home for would-be drivers learning to alley dock.

Old Park Station, in its incomplete purity, lays vacant, gazing east in the direction of the new Park Station. It is the alpha ousted from its former land and utilitarian pride. The out-of-place structure is a remnant of the old city – a beautiful antique in the lounge of Aunty Joburg, waiting to be liberated from the stuffy hoarded clutter and born anew. For the time being, its wispy body forms a contrast to Newtown’s colour-blocked affordable-housing schemes. And while it waits for its next life, we love to view the old skeletal sculpture, sitting pretty on its pedestal.

Read more stories in our Building an Icon series. Don’t forget to sign up to our weekly newsletter for the latest architecture and design news.

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