Page 96 - 360.revista de Alta Velocidad - Nº 6

Baron, Nacima.

they experience it is not clock time, divisible into sequences, but subjective in its extent and
duration.
The second illusion is one held by observers of the changes in the stations, who mock the
corporate rhetoric around customer focus and question the real utility of station retail
in terms of the assumed needs of travellers. Are all these gift shops and fine food outlets
really necessary? This debate on the commodification of stations has prompted comparative
research on stations and airports and on the connection between public and private in the
management of potentially useful transport spaces. However, for our purposes, it would seem
more useful to go beyond the simple measurement of commercial provision, and to explore
the paradigm shift whereby the pedestrian is more and more - at the same time - reacting as
a customer.

4.2 Harmonizing visual consumption and movement patterns

Any science of station flows and more generally of pedestrian mobility in dense conditions
must firstly take into account the conditions of spatial visuality and visibility, and secondly
the different perceptual regimes of users (Brighenti A. 2010). This new episteme establishes
the station not only as a space of flows, but first of all as a space of looking, defining the user
not as a pedestrian but as an observer (moving observer/observing mover). The pedestrian’s
behaviour therefore arises from the succession of planes of view presented as he moves, in
the same time he moves, which at each moment defines the field of visibility and therefore
the range of actions open to him.
And precisely, the before and after studies 2010 - 2017 conducted in Gare du Nord confirm
that the rearrangement of the flows and retail spaces has brought about a enormous change
in the conditions of visibility. In a way, stations are designed for nearsighted people, in
another way for longsighted or vista lovers. The cross-platform, initially structured by large
clusters (waiting at the back, shopping at the side, departure board in the middle) has been
fragmented. Because of the proliferation of retail outlets, commercial intensification has
infiltrated throughout the station (including moving and waiting areas). Already saturated
with sensory and visual stimuli, the station space – a space both fragmented and filled –
nudges the customer through a series of enticements, prompting two major forms of mobility.
Within a visual field of some 10 to 20 metres, the customer perceives – simultaneously – a
short empty space to move through, a first mass of informational signals (signs, platform
number) and commercial messages (shopwindow, brand, billboard…). The act of buying no
longer entails a break or a detour, but has arguably become a simple gesture one can do
without stopping the movement logic. Moving customers navigate or drift, from one spot to
another, in zigzags, from one local sphere to another contiguous zone (from the screen to the
shop, then to the ticket punching machine, then to the train).
The second flow paradigm lies in the construction of a new optical relationship between
movement in the station and retail function. The installation of a two-level starred restaurant
on the crossplatform, the vertical extension of the Relay outlet, and the reorganisation of the
Eurostar mezzanine, all these examples proof that the provision a panoptic view of the flow
is a station design trend. In any of these three stores, the pedestrian can appreciate the long
view, the wide spectrum, the aerial perspective, a "stationscape" which is a source of visual
or sensory enjoyment that itself creates commercial value. Thus, the place with the best view
of the station is no longer the station master’s office, but Eurostar floor or deluxe restaurant,
that are the station’s smartest retail outlet. From here, the user is no more a pedestrian (he
feels aristocratically detached from the dangerous crouwd or from the coercitive flow. Thus,
the traveller unconsciously consents to buy an expensive sandwich in an outlet, topologically
perched above the fray, and the price includes the enjoyment of the show laid out before him
as he eats.

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