King's Cross (building)

The station sits directly on the former grounds of a smallpox and fever hospital. When it opened in eighteen fifty-two, it was the largest railway terminus in Britain, designed by Lewis Cubitt with a focus on raw, industrial utility rather than the decorative flourishes common to buildings of the era. The architect wanted the exterior to reveal exactly what was happening inside, which is why the two massive arched windows on the front wall perfectly match the shape of the train sheds behind them. This commitment to functionalism was so ahead of its time that later generations of architects and critics began to hail the building as an early triumph of modernism.