Valencia Estación del Norte History and Architecture
The North Station of Valencia (Estación del Norte) serves both suburban and medium- and long-distance passenger services.More than 14 million passengers pass through the station every year, 11 million of which are on suburban lines. This is where I arrived yesterday from Castellon de La Plana (panorama from my last visit to Valencia in May 2013). The word "Norte" does not mean "northern" at all, as one might think, in fact it is the name of the company founded in 1858, which built and operated the station before the nationalization of the railways in 1941. In 1851, the Norte company built a 6 km long railway line connecting the city center with the port area of El Grao. The classic station building, decorated with Doric columns, was built near the Town Hall Square by engineers James Beatty and Domingo Cardenal and opened on March 21, 1952. In 1854, a second line connecting Valencia with Chativa was launched, five years later another one was opened to Almanza, and in 1865, with the launch of the Madrid-Tarragona-Barcelona line, Valencia became one of its most important hubs. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the old railway station no longer met the requirements of increased passenger traffic, and the location was not entirely successful, and the Norte company took care of the construction of a new railway hub. The Art Nouveau project was designed by architect Demetrio Ribes (Demetrio Ribes, his next work was the reconstruction of the North Station in Barcelona) and the foundation stone was laid in 1906 and on August 2, 1907.The station, which was inaugurated on August 8, 1917, had a total area of 15,000 square meters, the platforms were covered with a 24.5-meter-high steel arch structure designed by Enrique Grasset. Glazed ceramic tiles and mosaics made by Jose Mongrell were used in the decoration of the building. The halls are decorated with mosaics with Valencian motifs — landscapes, scenes from life. In the lobby at the ticket counters, in the space between the windows, there are mosaics with the inscription "bon voyage" in different languages. The lower part of the walls is covered with wooden panels decorated with ceramic bas-reliefs with floral ornaments typical of the Art Nouveau era. Since 1961, the station has been declared a historical monument, and since 1983 it has been included in the register of the Spanish Cultural Heritage Organization (Bien de Interés Cultural).
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