Megastructure as a New Urban Paradigm

In this research I would like to compare Berlin's Hauptbahnhof to other megastructures in order to understand their relationship to modern urbanism. Megastructuralism can be explained in three different steps showing its self-evolution from the utopian housing concepts of the 1930´s to the megastations of the 21st century. First step: megastructure as a residential project. The beginning of the Megastructure era was related to the residential housing project located along a highway from the modernist movement’s “Fort l'Empereur project” (Le Corbusier, 1931) or Archigram's proposal link to the new urban forms in a technological period known as "Lower Manhattan Expressway” (Paul Rudolph, 1970). Second step: megastructure as institutional project. The use of large structures found its place in cultural spaces such as “Centre Pompidou” (Piano, Rogers and Franchini, 1970) and in workplaces of the post-industrial city described by Koolhaas in “Delirious New York". Third step: megastructure as mobility, ecology and technology project. The modern society of the 21st century has a never before seen demand for mobility. Today’s cities become more and more machines of transportation. The combination of computer technology and the challenges of the 21th century, produce a new kind of megastructuralism. Berlin’s public transportation system is one of the Europa’s biggest train stations: “Hauptbahnhof”. In this research it will show that Hauptbahnhof station must be seen as a new kind of megastructure. In the future, cities will become more and more crowded; hence space will have to be used more efficiently. Hauptbahnhof shows how space can be used most efficiently if buildings grow into megastructures that accommodate every possible function. The station is therefore a vast source for models of densification that could lead to a sustainable urbanism in the future.