Duchcov Railway stop

The Duchcov railway station was built in the second half of the nineteen sixties. The reason was a railway line relocation, which was necessitated by the expansion of the Bílina brown coal mine. The station building is well preserved in its historical form and as a remarkable example of Brussels style architecture, it is protected as a cultural monument.

At the beginning of the nineteen sixties, due to the progress of surface mines in the region, a whole series of railway line relocations were being planned and constructed. The original line through Duchcov was closed. It ended at the old station, which then served only freight transport. Therefore, it was decided to build a new station for passenger transport, approximately one and a half kilometres north of the city centre, near the road to the nearby village of Lahošť. The station building opened in nineteen sixty nine, roughly a year after the line relocation itself. All construction work was definitively completed in nineteen seventy two.

The building design was developed from nineteen sixty two by the State Institute for Transport Planning under the direction of architect Jiří Hylíš. The renowned Czech architect Jaroslav Otruba also contributed to the project. The original design was much more extensive, but it was significantly reduced during the planning phase.

In front of the station is a traffic loop. The building itself has a regular hexagonal floor plan and a lightweight exterior envelope that carries no load. The roof with a large overhang rests on slender pillars. Water runs from it through a massive concrete downspout into a basin on the southwestern side of the building.

Most of the interior space is occupied by a tall glazed hall, from which you enter directly into the underpass to the platforms. In the northern and western part, the space is divided by an inserted intermediate floor. There are ticket offices and other service rooms here. On the second floor was a station restaurant, which is reached by a generous central staircase.

The most striking element of the interior is the ceiling of the hall. It is made of coffers in the shape of inverted triangular pyramids, which have different heights and differently inclined peaks. The glazed wall is articulated by a grid, which the architect deliberately disrupted in the horizontal direction. On the outside, the building is clad with sandstone, and inside, glass mosaic is prominently used on the walls.

By the central staircase stands a sculpture called Leaning, by sculptor Julius Lankáš, in a flower planter.