Saarinen won the competition in 1904 with a romantic castle of a station and spent the next fifteen years cutting the fantasy out of it. What opened in 1919 is granite quarried at Hanko, laid in heavy rusticated courses, fronted by one enormous parabolic arch and a clock tower — weight arranged rationally, ornament reduced to the joint between two stones.

This system inherits that discipline. Pale sunlit ashlar carries the page, deep red granite carries every action, oxidised copper streaks the dividers, and the four lantern bearers' spherical lamps supply the only true circles on screen. Nothing floats; everything is load-bearing, jointed and cut.