Berlin Trip : Berlin Hauptbahnhof

I’m not sure how I’ve managed to miss Berlin Hauptbahnhof on my previous trips to the city, but it’s one of the most architecturally impressive stations that I’ve seen. It’s not a new building either, this design is from when it reopened in May 2006, but it feels modern and current.

The station was opened in 1871 as the terminus for the Berlin-Lehrte railway line, known as Lehrter Bahnhof it quickly grew into a major hub. Its grand architecture, designed in the French Neo-Renaissance style, earned it the nickname ‘palace among stations’ although it got a bit smashed up during the Second World War. Services came back to the railway station after the end of the war, but were suspended again in 1951 and bits of the station started to fall down. With the arrival of the Stadtbahn (city railway) in 1882, Lehrter Bahnhof became even more crucial to Berlin’s transport network.

However, the station suffered significant damage during World War II. Though services resumed after the war, they were eventually suspended in 1951, and the station fell into disrepair. Then Berlin got split up and it ended up in Western Sector, near to the Berlin Wall. Not much happened until Germany was unified (with the station I mean, quite a lot happened in general) and they decided that Lehrter Bahnhof would be the site for a new central station. So they knocked down the rickety old one and built a lovely new one which was designed by architects Gerkan, Marg and Partners. It took ten years to build this but it was completed just in time for the football World Cup.

It was the multi-level nature of the railway station that impressed me, that’s a track at the top as well.

It has something of a shopping vibe feel to it, but that’s what funds these buildings.

The signage here was one of the best I’ve seen at a railway station and it’s helped by the transport system avoiding using complex line names, they just go with letters and numbers which makes things much easier. Well, for me anyway.

And a train going by.

A model of the railway station.