Page 87 - Sajo ENG

1956–1961

THE CONCRETE SHELL

STRUCTURE OF

DEBRECEN RAILWAY STATION

Petőfi Square

It is known from recollections that the most prominent part of the railway
station, the design of its inner hall, was Sajó’s invention. A special feature of
the centrally located waiting hall is the ‘cross-vaulted’ roof structure composed
of three reinforced concrete shells towering over the architectural mass of
building. The shell structure is supported by a series of columns merging into
the walls, under the arches of which the space is flooded with natural light. Sajó’s
innovation, even by international standards, is manifest in the way he applied
the traditional, ancient cross-vault element and the skylight, while exploiting
the static advantages created by the modern reinforced concrete shell structure
and the parabolic shape. By combining hyperbolic and parabolic forms with the
solidity of material he realised the largest-spanning and lightest space-covering
known in the late modern architecture of the 1950s.

One of the inspirations for the roof structure of the hall may have been Penn
Station in New York with its vaulted covering and a skylight, which Sajó may
well have visited several times when he lived in America. An architectural mass
with side-lighting similar to the waiting hall in Debrecen railway station was
implemented at the same time at Saint Louis Lambert International Airport.

Endre Domanovszky’s sgrafitto works under the roof structure are also
noteworthy: the one on the eastern wall of the waiting hall depicts the bustle of
Debrecen fairs, while the renowned Puszta Five can be seen on the western wall.

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