Subway systems around the world were built to aid the ease of moving people around from place to place, from city to city, reducing the amount of traffic and volume on roadways. They must be built solid in order to sustain the weight of equipment needed to operate, the volume of people and the forces of nature. Those that are built above ground need to deal with bad weather of all sorts while those built underground need to be built solid to sustain any possible flooding, pressure or ground shift.
Decor and artwork compliment the design, work and effort that were put in to build such structures plus it adds a sense of wonder and color in the life of the station. A person who takes the subway won't have a boring experience.
The Toledo Subway station of Naples Italy offers such an experience. With it's mixture of white, light blue to purple tiled walls running uniformly along the walls and ceiling, illuminated escalators and it's giant blue oval sunlight in the ceiling make an atmosphere colorful, calm and interesting. Featured are also mosaic artwork at the top of the station before traversing deep underground. A traveler is sure to have a wonderful and amazing experience in this station.
The Sauvé metro station of Montreal is a no thrills, basic metro station. The inside and outside have very bland colors. There is not much artwork when arriving at the mezzanine and descending down the escalators ,unlike the Toledo Metro, offers no wonder as the ceiling white with two rows of descending fluorescent lights. There are, however a few interesting details about this subway station that can be quite comparable to the Toledo station in Italy despite it`s appearance.
Both the Toledo and Sauvé subway station have common features. One of them is, they both stand out. Toledo station is considered an impressive and great looking subway station in Europe while Sauvé station unfortunately is regarded as one of the worst looking in the city. The latter subway station does have barely any artwork, along with it`s narrow corridors and to an outsider, the color of the tiles seems monotonous and lifeless. That`s the impression one gets when one first glances at such a structure. However taking a closer look, their is a hidden and interesting feature about this station that can be comparable to looks with the Toledo stop. It has square tiles running randomly. They run all over on the walls in two different shade colors such as the Toledo stop. Such a pattern can mimic the movement of people who pass, at all hours of the day, through the subway station. They also interchange color just as in the Toledo station, rather than on the ceiling it's found on the platform walls surrounding the seats. Such design is derived from the 1960s, the way the square tiles are spread about running randomly with two or three different shades of colors. The Sauvé metro station was built according to the STM https://www.stm.info/en/info/networks/metro/sauve , the city of Montreal`s public transit operator, in 1966. The Toledo station was opened many years later and could have been inspired by the Sauvé metro in the use of the small square tiles dressed in mosaic, just colored differently.
In conclusion, both stations are different and similar in architecture. However both should be equally appreciated, even if one is more beautiful than the other. Appreciation of their purpose comes first and their charm comes second.
Toledo Station, was taken by Enrique RG via Flickr by permission.
