Leipzig Hauptbahnhof
Two grand halls under one roof, because two railway companies refused to share a single front door.
At a glance
Leipzig’s main station, opened in 1915 to a design by William Lossow and Max Hans Kühne, is the largest railway station in Europe measured by floor area. Its enormous frontage hides a quirk of history: it was built with two matching entrance halls, side by side, because the Saxon and Prussian railways that shared it each wanted a hall of its own.
Key facts
- Location: Willy-Brandt-Platz, Leipzig
- Architects: William Lossow and Max Hans Kühne
- Opened: 1915
- Claim: the largest railway station in Europe by floor area
- Quirk: two symmetrical entrance halls for two railways
History
Leipzig was a great trade-fair city with several scattered stations, and the Saxon and Prussian state railways agreed, reluctantly, to build one terminus together. Lossow and Kühne won the competition and solved the rivalry by giving each railway its own grand hall.
The result, finished in 1915, was a station on an imperial scale. War damage and decades of neglect followed; a thorough restoration in the 1990s turned the concourse into a station and shopping centre in one.
What you see
The stone frontage runs nearly three hundred metres, broken by two great arched windows that light the twin halls. Inside, a vast cross-hall leads to the platforms under long ridge-and-furrow roofs. The scale is the point: it was built to impress a city of merchants and the empires that ran the trains.
Practical information
- Open: daily, as a working station
- Cost: free to enter the halls
- Best for: the twin entrance halls and the cross-hall
- Time needed: 20–30 minutes
Getting there
The Hauptbahnhof is at the edge of Leipzig’s ring road, a few minutes’ walk from the old market square and a hub for national and S-Bahn trains.
Nearby
- Markt — the old market square and Renaissance town hall
- Museum der bildenden Künste — the fine-arts museum nearby
Sources
- Encyclopædia Britannica / Wikipedia — Leipzig Hauptbahnhof
- Deutsche Bahn — station heritage information
- Wikimedia Commons — image source and licence
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