If you haven’t taken heed of our guide to ‘neighbouring’ Stoke Newington for your sunny Sunday constitutional, then consider a trip to behold this week’s newly unveiled King’s Cross Station concourse.
As you can see, the sweeping design of John McAslan & Partners proto alien architecture is well worth a non-train related visit. It rises up with ballsy ambition and scale to match the phenomenal success of St Pancras over the road – hardly an easy act to follow – in preserving the best of our illustrious Victorian infrastructure, enhanced with digital era panache.
This area’s transport history is defined by the iron and brickwork, tunnels, bridges and factories which hold such a grip on the imagination.
They are being celebrated throughout the King’s Cross development and it’s a wonderful thing. Let’s hope the same can be said of Hawley Wharf in Camden in a few years time.
The unexpected serenity of this brand new public space, like the British Museum’s Great Court mated with Terminal 5, was soon broken on our visit, though. A horde of tourists suddenly splurted out across the concourse and, without so much as a second glance at the gleaming new edifice towering up above them, made a beeline for ‘Platform 9 3/4 ‘.
So it looks like a brick wall with a trolley stuck into it will steal the limelight here as a baffling tourist magnet of Madame Tussauds proportions. Luckily, we see that KX residents The Guardian have just launched a free mobile app that might redress this a little, providing GPS triggered slices of history (alongside all the Harry Potter stuff.)
Check out the snappy video below for the app, or even better, read and follow the Kentishtowner’s very own guide to the area.
