Berlin Central Station, which opens its doors a few days before the World Cup, is the largest railway junction in Europe. Architectural feat and logistics masterpiece, it places the bustling German metropolis at the heart of the continent. Even if Berlin Hauptbahnhof, symbol of reunified Germany, is born in a city with a disaster economy.

The largest railway crossroads in Europe

May 26 be another historic day for Berlin? After eight years of construction and seventeen years after the fall of the Wall, the central station of the German capital, located on the site of the old Lehrter Bahnhof, finally opens its doors, placing Berlin even more at the heart of Europe. Berlin Hauptbahnhof, the continent’s largest station, will undoubtedly be the hub of European rail traffic. Within it, the two major axes Paris-Moscow (East-West) and Rome-Copenhagen (North-South) will intersect. It is quite simply the most important railway crossroads in Europe: more than 1,200 trains and nearly 300,000 people should stop or transit there every day.

And this, in the heart of Berlin, a stone’s throw from the Tiergarten, the Reichstag and Potsdamer Platz. When the wall fell, the place was a no man’s land: today, Berlin’s central station is, a few days before the opening of the Mondial de foot, the last stone in the building of the reunified capital. And it is a cut stone.

A gigantic glass and steel snake

Designed by German architect Meinhard von Gerkan, the Berlin Hauptbahnhof is impressive, and looks from afar like a gigantic glass snake adorned with two office towers. The dimensions of this pharaonic monument leave you dreaming: the East-West axis, located 10 m from the ground, is surmounted by a glass gallery 321 m long and 40 m wide. The hall, oriented North-South, cuts the glass roof over a length of 160 m. It is framed by two 46 m high buildings that span, like bridges, the tracks. Finally, the station is fully lit by daylight, filtered through the glass roof.

Hold your breath, as it is only the “visible” part of the monster. In the basement, 15 m deep, 8 routes spread over 430m serve the North-South axis. Finally, on the mezzanine, a car park with a capacity of 900 parking spaces awaits travelers, as well as 15,000 m 2 of shops of all kinds and food outlets. The different levels are linked together by 54 escalators and 34 elevators, including 6 panoramic ones.

The cathedral builders would not have been disoriented by the Berlin Hauptbahnhof yard. Just for the foundations of this titanic project, it was necessary to dig tens of meters to remove 1.5 million cubic meters of earth and establish 9 levels of 90,000 m 2, the surface of 11 football fields.

Four networks in one place

A rare architectural feat, Berlin Hauptbanhof is also a masterpiece of logistics and traffic organization. On its site, five different networks coexist in a single hub in the world: the two main East-West / North-South “Main Lines” rail axes, the regional lines of the state of Brandenburg, the S-Bahn (equivalent of our RER) above ground and the metro (line U5) underground. All in one place.

It is therefore a model of interconnection of rare efficiency, which is missing only the airway. The plane has always been, it is true, the Achilles heel of Berlin: for obvious historical reasons, Lufthansa preferred to place its hubsin Munich and Frankfurt. With its new station, Berlin is ready to welcome the hordes of football supporters, but also the tourists, more and more numerous, who rediscover its charms.

A station to avoid the siding.

It remains to be seen whether a building of such gigantism arrives at the right time. Berlin is struggling to digest a reunification with forceps, after ten years of radical transformations. The city is bankrupt, and her new clothes seem too big for her.

Certainly, the German capital shows a cultural vitality unique in Europe: the bohemian district of Prenzlauer Berg is in turmoil, the night scene of Friedrichshain always sets the tone for Europe of electronic music and the banks of the Spree are very pleasant in summer. Despite the chic but controversial hyper-modernism of its administrative buildings and the new Potsdamer Platz, Berlin has kept its bohemian and rebellious spirit against all odds.

But if the city knew how to attract artists and young people, the headquarters of companies, which remained in the west of Germany, shine by their absence. Many brand-new office buildings remain desperately empty. Today one of the most indebted conurbations in the world, Berlin is going through a very serious economic crisis. With an unemployment rate of around 20% and a deficit of 59 billion euros, Berlin is bloodless, to the point that its mayor Klaus Wowereit has filed a complaint against the federal state, whose finances are not flourishing, so that ‘he shows more solidarity.

Under these conditions, the new central station, whose gigantism and perfection are supposed to reflect the success of German reunification, is more like a beautiful tree hiding the forest of failures of reunification. Many Berlin decision-makers hope, however, that this new infrastructure will give a boost to the local economy. Deutsche Bahn estimates that passenger traffic could increase threefold by 2010. Will entrepreneurs be sensitive to the charms of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof? Pending better economic auspices, such a railway monument is undoubtedly worth the trip. Those who love Berlin will surely take the train.

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