Projects of the year: Most ambitious railway project

KING’S CROSS WESTERN CONCOURSE

This year marked a major milestone in the history of one of Britain’s oldest railway terminuses. The new King’s Cross western concourse opened in March, ushering in a new era of ambition and prestige, not just for the station and its environs, but the UK railway sector too. With its soaring elliptical roof and intricate webbed tracery of steel and glass, Europe’s largest single-span structure harks back to the golden age of travel when both stations and airports effortlessly combined sculptural expression with engineering spectacle to capture the glamour and anticipation of long-distance journeys.

Designed by John McAslan Architects, the project also involved a clever reorganisation of circulation within the station, with the abysmal seventies shed it replaced set to make way for a vast public square next year. Only the relative lack of glazing - just 15% - on the concourse roof, and the subsequent paucity of natural daylight in the space below, detracts from what would otherwise have been a truly spectacular architectural set-piece. The project is also the culmination of a long process of redevelopment that has been taking place at the station, and is a taster of the wave of regeneration that is under way behind the station.

The Western Concourse symbolises the confidence of a railway sector apparently spared from the ravages of austerity. With construction proceeding apace on Crossrail, the government’s continuing commitment to High Speed 2 and the completion of the world’s largest solar bridge at Blackfriars, the railway sector is one of the few that has enjoyed sustained public investment through the recession.