22 Japan Railway & Transport Review 28 • September 2001

New Stations

Feature

Copyright © 2001 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

A Comparison of Tokyo’s Oedo Line &London’s Jubilee Line Extension

Masayuki Fuchigami

Westminster Station (Y. Uchiyama) Southwark Station (Y. Uchiyama)

Tokyo’s 6-shaped 40.8-km Oedo Linewas fully opened on 12 December 2000.But the new subway line was a hot topiceven before construction was completedbecause it finally links areas of Tokyo withpoor transport connections to theextensive public transport network. Forexample, Akabanebashi, which used tobe thought of as an isolated ‘island’ insouth central Tokyo, is now just a 15-minute ride to the Shinjuku subcentre.However, much of the interest comesfrom the unique designs of the line’sstations. The designs were decided byan architectural competition in whichsuggestions were invited from a widerange of contestants. According topopular rumour, the Tokyo MetropolitanGovernment (TMG) set the architects andbuilders a target of building high-qualityunderground facilities at low cost, whichled to signif icant challenges andsharpened abilities.Interestingly, London Underground, theworld’s first subway system, also recentlycompleted a project in which variousarchitects worked together to designfabulous new stations. It is fascinatingto note the similarities between the twoprojects, which occurred at almostexactly the same time in both east andwest, both of which are large scale, andboth of which involved the participationof architects.

London’s first ‘Tube’ opened in 1863when Japan’s Edo period (1603–1867)was coming to an end and before anyrailways had been built in Japan.The progressiveness of the British systemwas truly remarkable. The earliestunderground trains were hauled by steamlocomotive on the Metropolitan Railwayrunning some 4 miles (about 6 km)between Paddington Stat ion andFarringdon Street. The current Tubenetwork runs a total of over 400 km on12 lines with 270 stations. Japan was 64years behind Britain in opening its firstsubway, which ran 2.2 km betweenAsakusa and Ueno (see A History ofJapanese Railways, 1872–1999, publishedby EJRCF). Today, including the OedoLine, the Tokyo system covers 280.5 kmwith 264 stations. In terms of stations,the two networks are similar, but the Tokyonetwork is still about 30% shorter.Like Tokyo, some parts of London weretransport-isolated islands and the issue oflinking south London with the East Endwas first raised in 1949. However, it wasnot until the redevelopment of the derelictdocklands into new financial andresidential centres during the late 1980sand 1990s that an acute need forimproved transport links was really felt.The deteriorating finances of the hugeCanary Wharf redevelopment motivatedthe Conservative government of the time

to approve government funding for theJubilee Line Extension (JLE), making theredeveloped areas much more accessible.The p lan invo lved an eas twardextension of the existing (completed in1977) Jubilee Line linking CharingCross in central London with Stanmorein the northwest suburbs. The newextension begins at Green Park inLondon ’s West End, and runs outthrough the Isle of Dogs to Stratford inthe east, providing a revolutionary high-speed, high-capacity link bringingmany benefits to London’s citizens.Areas with no previous Tube access,s u c h a s N o r t h G r e e n w i c h a n dBermondsey, are now on the map.People living in south-east London andKent can use Park and Ride (a systemof leaving one’s car at a suburbanstation and taking the train) to commuteto work, contributing to reduced trafficc o n g e s t i o n i n c e n t r a l L o n d o n .In t e rna t iona l connec t ions f romStratford and Waterloo have alsobecome much easier.Unlike suburban railways in Britain,Japan’s Oedo Line does not have a Parkand Ride system, because the OedoLine runs mainly through crowdedcentral Tokyo in a loop with a 13-kmtail running out to the northwestsuburbs. By comparison, the JLE is atruly urban underground extending

23Japan Railway & Transport Review 28 • September 2001Copyright © 2001 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

London Bridge Station (Y. Uchiyama) Bermondsey Station (Synectics Inc.)

Canada Water Station (Y. Uchiyama) Canary Wharf Station (Synectics Inc.)

Figure1 Jubilee Line Extension (JLE)from the centre of London to thesuburbs.The JLE is composed of twin tunnelsrunning for 12.2 km with 12 (11 new)stations. It is relatively deep at –15 to –30 m, partly because it runs under heavilydeveloped areas of London, but mostlybecause it runs under the River Thamesfour times. In comparison, the 40.8-kmOedo Line is about three times longer thanthe JLE and has 38 stations. It passes underthe River Sumida three times and since itis a central loop line under a heavilydeveloped city with many undergroundstructures, it has been constructed evendeeper than the Jubilee Line at between –15 and –48 m.Roland Paoletti, the chief architect forthe JLE project, was very influential in

24 Japan Railway & Transport Review 28 • September 2001

New Stations

Copyright © 2001 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

North Greenwich Station (Synectics Inc.) Canning Town Station (Synectics Inc.)

Stations Architects

Westminster Sir Michael Hopkins

Waterloo JLE Team

Southwark MacCormac Jamieson Pritchard

London Bridge Weston Williamson

Bermondsey Ian Ritchie

Canada Water JLE Team

Canary Wharf Sir Norman Foster

North Greenwich Alsop, Lyall and Stormer

Canning Town John McAslan

West Ham Van Heyningen & Haward

Stratford Chris Wilkinson

Table 1 Eleven New Stations and Architects of JLE

the des ign o f the new s ta t ions ,r e c r u i t i n g w e l l - k n o w n m o d e r narchitects to oversee the design of ninestations. The remaining two—Waterlooand Canada Water—were handled byh i s o w n J L E d e s i g n t e a m .Commissioning stations designs in thisway is extremely rare in Britain.Paoletti considered the overall balanceof the station designs and specifiedsome details regarding components—the floors of concourses, the escalators,the glass platform doors and the signs—but o ther than th i s , he gave no

particularly strict design guidelines.Instead, the architects he selected wereencouraged to design very individualproposals, while paying close attentionto civil engineering issues.As a result, each station is a fusion ofarchitecture and engineering, givingbirth to an austere elegance, throughwhich all the stations share a commonvocabulary of high technology andhard-edged functionality. This trendalso reflects a previous tradition ofEnglish subway station design byleading architects in the 1930s.

The JLE was the largest project of itstype to have been undertaken in Europeand involved the most complex anddi f f icul t tunnel l ing ever done inLondon. As a resul t , the in i t ia lestimated completion date of spring1998 was too optimistic and the lineeventually opened in late 1999. Initialcost forecasts of ¥420 billion increasedto ¥552 billion. By comparison, theOedo Line cost a total of ¥988.6 billion.The project architects (Table 1) are allfamous within British architecture.The last three eastbound stationsincluding Canning Town are aboveground. Six of the 11 stations areentirely new, while the other fiveinvolved the challenge of extensionsand repairs to existing stations.Al though the JLE and Oedo Lineincorporate ‘design’ stations by well-known architects, it is the JLE stationsthat really demonstrate each architect’sindividual touch more storongly. Thisis principally because of different siteconditions. The JLE extends out fromthe centre of London so most of itsstations have their entrance halls aboveground. In comparison, the location ofthe Oedo Line in the centre of Tokyohas compelled the designers to put mostof the facilities underground with onlyentrances and exits opening to groundlevel. Therefore, the JLE s tat ion

25Japan Railway & Transport Review 28 • September 2001Copyright © 2001 EJRCF. All rights reserved.

Masayuki Fuchigami

Mr Fuchigami is an architectural journalist and member of the Japan Architectural Association. He

graduated from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and has edited and published various books on

architecture by well-known Japanese and foreign architects. He is President of Synectics, Inc., which

he established in 1989.

West Ham Station (Y. Uchiyama) Stratford Station (Synectics Inc.)

architects could consider the totalstation design, from platforms, throughto escalators and stairs, and out tostation concourses and ticket barriers.By comparison, when viewed from theJLE perspective, the Oedo Line stationsonly seem to slightly reflect the tastesof their designers, leaving a sense thatsomething is missing. It would havebeen nicer if facilities that are used byhundreds of thousands to millions ofpeople each day could have beendesigned in a more memorable waywith c learer indiv idual touches.Hopefully, future public works in urbaninfrastructure will express more of theindividual talents of the architects whodesign them.T h e r e i s g o o d p r e c e d e n t f o rinvolvement of independent architectsin designing public transport facilities.Notable examples are Genoa’s subwayby Renzo Piano, Bilbao’s subwayss ta t ions by Norman Fos te r, t heWilhelmena Plain Station by Schwarzand Jansma, and Blaak Station by C. H.Reijnders. The widespread inclusiono f a rch i t ec tu r a l de s i gn i n newunderground stat ions has helpedtranscend traditional station design andis an important sign that the gap thathas exis ted for so long betweenarchitecture and civil engineering maybe closing. I cannot be the only person

who hopes that these projects representa s igni f icant s tep towards a newmillennium in which the marriage ofarchitecture and civil engineeringbrings great results. �

AknowledgementThis article was published in Japanese in Station

Design and Pablic Art, Tokyo Metropolitan Subway

Construction Corp., 2000.

Staircase at Iidabashi Station on Oedo Line (TMG)