Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof

Frankfurt (Main) Hauptbahnhof is the busiest railway station in the German state of Hesse and the second busiest in Germany, opened on August 18, 1888 after five years of construction. Its entrance building was designed by Hermann Eggert, winner of the project's architectural competition, while the three great iron train sheds behind it, with barrel vaults 28 meters high, were engineered by the Berlin steel specialist Johann Wilhelm Schwedler. The entrance facade is built in a Renaissance Revival style, with Neoclassical extensions added in 1924, and the whole structure spans 270 meters with three central bays recalling the three separate railway companies that originally used it. A bronze sculptural group by Gustav Herold crowns the roofline, showing Atlas bearing a globe among figures representing steam, electricity, trade, agriculture, industry and shipping; the station briefly ranked as the largest in Europe until Leipzig Hauptbahnhof surpassed it in 1915.