Nádraží Holešovice comprises of uniform rectangular slabs, each about 80cm x 150 cm. The regularity is unsettling. Nature couldn't produced something like this. It doesn't even feel right for people. It's more like a vast play set.
Some of my friends like this unpretentious unadorned style. My tastes are more 'decadent'. Maybe it's all this concrete which turns me off. On a day when the sky looks freshly poured and about to set, the occasional spire or arch provides relief.
This station would have provided a ready-made symbol the Czech Republic's transition from communism to capitalism, a meretricious veneer of commerce over a drab building. Yet already this mix feels outdated. A better symbol of Prague would be the gentrified buildings, gutted to make way for trendy boutiques or cafés. Nádraží Holešovice represents what has been left behind. Perhaps it will be modernised like the main train station. Perhaps the building will be preserved in the amber of nostalgia.
A parrot mobile dangles from the rafters of the beer garden outside. The only greenery are the weeds sprouting from the cracks and the parrot's wings. They sort of look like broad wilted leaves. This wooden bird describes a stupefied arc and while doing so surveys each of us at one of the six large tables.
Perhaps I should've called this Closely Observed Bars. I had wanted to sit in the main foyer and watch the stream of people. However, all the seats were occupied, mostly by students. From the snippets of conversation, I assume most of them are German. Probably off home after a school excursion here. Instead of the human pageantry I've got this parrot, five quiet men staring blankly into space. In the next room there's a trannie and her trick.
Though I'm in the bar, a patina covers it. It's as if I'm looking at it at it through a smudged pane. The grandeur that was intended, the raucous last drinks and couples luxuriously sipping wine on the ample velvet seats, only becomes apparent with some imagination. The immediate impression is a place of loss, where people come with a few private thoughts.
Holešovice wasn't chosen randomly. G. and I heading to Berlin for the weekend. Our train leaves in thirty minutes, hence the brief entry. (I only got to enter it after we returned.) I haven't been to that city in five years. After my first visit I raved about the place. I fell in love with its vastness, its teeming possibilities, an abandon I haven't even experienced in London. I hope after all this time the magic is still there.
This week
16 years ago
5 comments:
I spent a long time at Holešovice when I was on my way back to Leipzig earlier this year. I would have liked to have found the parrot! (But would have been terrified of the bar.) Instead I sat on the station and drew a picture of the interesting building opposite - "Wolf Prefa". A lady came up and asked me to do a survey about my experience in the Czech Republic. The train was 50 minutes late, I was delighted to do this survey.
That comment was from Vanessa, not Tim. Blogger has saved my email address as Tim and it seemingly cannot be undone!
These blogs do have a mind of their own. I tried to post something on Tim's last night and it recognised me as someone else.
Do you still have that picture? Would you mind if I put a scan of it up on the blog?
I remember that building, Wolf Prefa. Was it quite tall and thin with an exposed stairwell, opposite the platform?
I will assume that I am one of the friends who are hip to Holešovice's style. Guilty as charged. I can imagine some train stations in Perth going this way after the mining boom runs out and desertification and totalitarianism finally take over.
It is not a great picture! But I will try and scan (or more probably photograph) it for you!
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