Brussels Central Station
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Brussels Central Station is a railway and metro station in central Brussels, Belgium.
Inception and construction
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Brussels-North and Brussels-South were the primary railway stations in Brussels (Brussels-North slowly supplanted the original Template:Lang/Template:Lang railway station near the same site). However, they were joined only by an inadequate single track running along what is today the Small Ring (Brussels' inner ring road). Many proposals were put forward to link the two stations more substantially. A law was finally passed in 1909 mandating a direct connection; however, the final project would not be completed until nearly half a century later.
The famed architect Victor Horta was awarded the design of the Central Station building complex in 1910. He finished the initial version in 1912. Plans for the station originally featured a major urban redevelopment project, for which land was purchased and over 1,000 buildings demolished in the 1920s.Template:Sfn The Putterie/Putterij district began to be razed to make way for the underground station and building complex. However, work was halted by World War I. Financial constraints limited work after the war, and in 1927, the Belgian Government suspended the project altogether. In 1935, a new office dedicated to the project was set up and work resumed. The Central Station was planned as a hub in the connection. However, World War II slowed construction again. The interruptions and delays to construction left large areas filled with debris and craters for decades.Template:Sfn
Horta returned to work on the station after the end of the war. Following his death, in 1947, an architectural team led by Maxime Brunfaut, son of the architect Fernand Brunfaut, president of the National Bureau of the North–South connection, was entrusted with the station's construction. The building was completed according to Horta's plans by Brunfaut, who expanded them by adding a new train line to Brussels Airport, in the suburb of Zaventem, as well as several underground passageways for pedestrians.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The station was finally inaugurated on 4 October 1952. Two memorial plaques in the station's main hall commemorate the opening. On the left-hand side of the second plaque is a medallion bearing Fernand Brunfaut's image.<ref>Thierry Belenger and Élisabeth Horth (éd.), Brunfaut's : progressive architecture. Fernand, Gaston, Maxime Brunfaut: a family of modernist architects, Brussels, Atomium éditions/CFC-éditions, 2013 (Les Carnets d'Architecture contemporaine)</ref>
See also
