Stuttgart Central Station - Building/structure Details

Building/structure Details

The station building was constructed using reinforced concrete, which was then covered with roughly hewn shell limestone ashlar, sourced from the area around Crailsheim. The station tower is 56 meters high, with a rotating Mercedes-Benz star, measuring 5 meters in radius, on the visitor's terrace on the 9th level, right above the Bistro21. Also on the tower is a clock, whose radius measures 5.5 meters. Inside the tower is the TurmForum Stuttgart 21, which provides information and media to do with the Stuttgart 21 project.

The front of the building features a quote by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the form of a lit inscription - the quote reads … daß diese Furcht zu irren schon der Irrtum selbst ist. - loosely translated as "… that this fear of making a mistake is a mistake itself." The inscription is a work by the artist Joseph Kosuth from the early 1990s.

Long-distance trains end their run in the above-ground terminus station at one of 17 tracks (1-16 and 1a), which is located on the second floor of the main hall, with the main entrance and service counters on the ground floor. Also in the main hall, near the south exit, a DB Lounge for first-class passengers and members of frequent-traveller programs, such as bahn.comfort, AIRail, or Miles & More, may be found. In the underground S-Bahn station, which is on the 3rd underground floor, all S-Bahn traffic, which is managed by the Verkehrs- und Tarifverbund Stuttgart (VVS), stops at one of two tracks (numbered 101 and 102).

Under the station forecourt, the seven lines of the Stadtbahn traverse the 2nd underground floor. A personnel passage on the 1st underground floor, which features many stores and boutiques, serves as the pedestrian connection between the Hauptbahnhof and the city center. A part of this 1st underground floor is taken up by an underground parking garage, and a multi-use shelter. In case of a civil emergency, a section of the garage would turn into a shelter with beds, separated from the rest of the garage by pressurized doors; the control room, kitchen, sanitation equipment, and water-and air conditioning for the shelter are located in the 2nd underground floor.