Central Signal Box

The main signal tower stands in the railway yards beside a road bridge. As close to the street as an apartment or office building, it relates to the city as much as to the tracks, and its object-like character links it to the other solitary buildings of this disparate area.

It is also within sight of an earlier signal box in another part of the yards. Their similar structure and the copper strips wrapped around both buildings underline the relationship, forming a pair that could grow into a group. The earlier box had become a prototype that could be built anywhere in the country’s urban regions, a vision of the country as a single urban landscape.

Although the design is the same, the main tower looks different because of its trapezoidal, almost triangular plot between the tracks. Its plan evolves into a rectangle as it rises, and the copper strips cover the steps in the facade, so its geometry becomes hard to read. It evokes something organic and vulnerable, like a head or a brain, rather than technical equipment.