From the dawn of railway age, European engineers constructed huge beautiful train sheds covering all tracks at the gate of big city, while Japanese engineers began to choose small gable butterfly shed protection only over the platforms after 40 years of delay from European countries. We examined the pictures of railway stations, the specialized journals, the thesis of railway and the history of iron architecture in Japan, we clarified two important facts. 1) At the latter half of 19
th century, many Japanese engineers were surprised at various tremendous train sheds in European big cities at their inspections and they well recognized, with the sense of inferiority, the economical and technical difference between Japan and European countries. But the engineers became doubtful of the enormous dispense to build the railway stations, as for the train shed, the affirmative evaluation for its function to protect passengers and wagons turned into the negative judgement for its difficulty to discharge the smoke of the steam locomotive and for its large cost of the construction and its maintenance. 2) At the background of this fact, in Japan the iron structure were adopted with priority in factories and in bridges and the design, the fabrication and the construction of steel were started only from the first half of 20
th century. Add to this history, the beauty of truss structure never became the center of expression in architecture and the cultural reason that the large Buddhist halls in Japan were developed as enveloping space prevented the train shed from becoming city entrance and exhibition hall of technology like cathedral in Europe which played important social role.
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