Re: 'Places that work: I. Grand Central Station's Main Concourse'

I caught this brief post on Metrolpolismag.com the other day: Places that work: I. Grand Central Station's Main Concourse. In the author's opinion, daylight is the largest contributing factor to the success of Grand Central Terminal's main concourse. Though I am sure the daylight helps during the day-lit hours, I am not certain that it is the single most powerful force contributing to its success. This is my attempt to recount why on one particular evening Grand Central Terminal was a place that worked.

It was December 31st around 7:50 pm, a few hours after the sun had set, a few more until the ball would drop. It was my first trip back to New York City since starting architecture school six months earlier. Although I had been there dozens of times before, nothing had prepared me for this night. I was waiting to meet up with a few good friends of mine. We had chosen the center of the station, right by the big clock. It should be no surprise that we were not the only ones.

The first architectural detail I remember is the higher than human scale ceiling that seemed appropriate for the occasion. As I try to recount the scene from where I was standing, I cannot help but give way to a perspective that takes me above the crowd, looking down on all of us in our dark, winter outfits, our small bodies contrasting with the muted stone walls and floors. The visitors in motion glide seamlessly around each other until they leave the scene or pause to find their familiar counterpart to embrace. Impermanent as we move in and out at a hurried pace, for any given moment we are all guests of the station, dancing together under the varying tones of warm, electric lighting. The arched windows above introduce us to the glow of the surrounding city, shadows cast in all the deep layers of those high ceilings. Somewhere from within those layers, speakers play something classical and recognizable to one with little knowledge of the genre at just the right volume; loud enough to hear if you pay attention, but soft enough to ignore if you are caught up in the exuberant sounds and motions of the ground floor. The emotions and movements of the room mimick the music; there ware adagios and long rests between allegros and crescendos. I wait and watch for about twenty minutes as my friends ran late. I stood there hoping perhaps they had forgotten about me so I could stay and watch for another few hours. 

It was clear from the extra long embraces, the occasional tears and the genuine outpouring of love that some had not seen each other in years. Many of the guests spoke languages unfamiliar to me, which made their tones and expressions that much more revealing in my observance. The room radiated in a way I had never felt before. The architecture certainly played a role, but none of the station's individual architectural characteristics really mattered at that given time. The space was perfect in facilitating a unique human experience, as if nothing else could have possibly been in its place.

I am extremely interested in understanding how design can impact our experience of space. But no matter what any of us diagnose as the reason for a building's success, the real impact is not in our prescription of those characteristics, it is in our ability to persuade others that their execution has created a worthy place to visit and observe for themselves. Maybe that is the point of a blog series entitled 'places that work', but to me such a series is representative of a much larger dilemma in learning about architecture today. We can explain the benefits of daylight ad nauseam, but if the audience does not get out and see it in the context in which it was described, for which it was remembered, they will never understand it for themselves. If they never understand it for themselves, they will never be able to create it in a building born out of their own imagination. Yes, daylight is important in Grand Central Terminal - but such a brief attempt to explain why is not doing the space or the student any justice. She must feel the importance of daylight herself and be taught to observe it and its benefits.