After the visit to the mock-up of a tunnelled Crossrail station the other week, I thought I would have a closer look at the huge cavern that is the future Crossrail station in Canary Wharf.
Built inside an old dock, which was until about a year ago home to more ducks than humans, it is now a deep – very deep – building site that was full of activity even on a Saturday lunchtime.
It is a pleasant historic accident that the old docks in Canary Wharf do lend themselves ideally to building big train stations inside the huge spaces they have left behind, and although the part of the Canary Wharf station that will be above ground should look very nice, part of me wishes they had kept it entirely subterranean and put parks on top as at the Jubilee Line, or re-flooded the top, as was originally planned for that same Jubilee Line station.
For me, it is the wide spaces between buildings that is part of the appeal of the Docklands area, with parks and watery docks ensuring plenty of light and air gets between the tall skyscrapers.
A few photos:
