Gare do Oriente

Interesting facts

The metro station beneath Oriente holds eleven artworks by artists from five continents, including Hundertwasser, Yayoi Kusama, Erró, Zao Wou-Ki and Magdalena Abakanowicz.

Each of the metro station's artworks takes up the ocean theme of Expo '98, whose subject was the oceans.

Before designing Oriente, Calatrava had already built the stations at Lyon Saint-Exupéry airport and Zurich Stadelhofen.

The station replaced the small Olivais stop, which had stood on almost the same spot since the Linha do Norte opened in 1856.

Its eight tracks are reached from platforms that are each 297 metres long, and every track is electrified throughout.

Planners once considered linking the station to a river pier at Doca dos Olivais, with ferries across the Tagus to Montijo and Alcochete.

Through trains from Oriente to Faro began in 2003, crossing the Tagus on the 25 de Abril Bridge.

The metro station below served as the eastern terminus of the Red Line until the line was extended northwards in 2012.

In 2023 the Spanish edition of Condé Nast Traveler listed Oriente among the 45 most remarkable railway stations in the world.

Why it is worth it

Lisbon's Oriente station turns a railway junction into a piece of sculpture. Designed by the Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava, it carries its trains on a platform raised about 19 metres above the street, sheltered by a lattice canopy of glass and steel whose slender ribs and pointed vaults have often been compared to Gothic architecture. The design recalls Calatrava's earlier Allen Lambert Galleria in Toronto, and it won a Brunel Award for railway architecture in October 1998, only months after opening.

The station was born of two projects at once: the modernisation of the Linha do Norte, Portugal's main line, and the transformation of a derelict industrial strip along the Tagus for the 1998 world's fair, Expo '98. An international competition held in 1994 chose Calatrava's scheme, drawn up between 1994 and 1995, and the station opened in May 1998 together with the exposition. Lifting the tracks onto a viaduct removed the barrier the railway had formed between the city and the riverfront, and the station became the gateway to the new district of Parque das Nações that grew from the Expo site.

Oriente works on several levels. The two lowest hold the metro station on the Red Line, the ground level serves local and long-distance buses, three intermediate levels house shops and passages linking to the Vasco da Gama shopping centre, and the top two carry eight electrified tracks with long platforms for suburban, regional and intercity trains, including Alfa Pendular services to Porto and the Algarve. When it opened it was the largest intermodal station in Portugal.

Parque das Nações, about 6 km from Lisbon's historic centre, still carries the legacy of Expo '98: the riverside promenade, the Lisbon Oceanarium, the Vasco da Gama Tower and a cluster of contemporary buildings, among which Calatrava's station is one of the most photographed.

Getting there

The station lies in Parque das Nações, eastern Lisbon. Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport (LIS) is about 3.5 km away and is linked to Oriente directly by the metro Red Line. Intercity and Alfa Pendular trains on the Linha do Norte stop here.

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From the encyclopaedia

Gare do Oriente, also known as Oriente Station or Lisbon Oriente Station , is an intermodal transport hub situated in the civil parish of Parque das Nações, in Lisbon. It includes a train station serving regional and intercity services, a metro station and a bus terminal serving local and long-distance routes.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia