On Sun, 1 Feb 2009 13:31:20 +0000, Pyromancer wrote

Euston is pretty much a lost cause, I think. The only real solution
would be to send a team of trainee architects untainted by the scourge
of "modernism" to examine St Pancras, and Glasgow Central, and
Manchester Piccadilly, and learn how a main line terminus station should
be designed, with beautiful and imposing buildings, a glass roof
supported by impressive-looking steelwork, and using traditional
materials like brick and stone.

Given that the railway is supposed to be the transport mode of the future -
new major terminals should reflect the best we can offer today. By all
means keep the best of what's gone before - the recent rebirth of St Pancras
shows how well that can be done, but pastiche and/or replica doesn't suit a
modern public building such as (say) Euston.

Look at Chep Lap Kok, built from scratch to do the job and act as a state of
the art structure into the bargain. No-one would have seriously suggested
that the terminal should have been a replica of Kai Tak.

In it's day Euston was a staggering building; a true examplar of Britain's
New Railway. Sadly it's since been debased to a point where it's of no real
architectural merit and barely functions as an effective public space.

Zaha Hadid, IM Pei, Frank Gehry, even Richard Rogers, could produce a
stunning terminal but, as you say, "that'd cost money, and no-one in the DfT
(who at the end of the day pay for such things) seems to believe that it's
important for the capital city terminus of one of our most prestigious routes
should be anything other than dull and utilitarian"