Benthem Crouwel and West 8 announced as winners of the Brno New Main Train Station competition

The plan refers to the local history and character of the city while creating a vibrant public space with a multi-purpose plan that incorporates retail, office, and dining functions into the 14-platform railway station. The plan further calls for a hotel, promenade, and waterfront park stationed around the dynamic €1.8 billion ($2.1 billion) development.

Designers were particularly responsive to the human needs presented in the scheme, incorporating a design scheme that emphasizes free movement and connectivity in a “barrier-free” district with clear views of Brno’s skyline.

“The new Brno main station is both grand and human, monumental and tangible. Our design combines a straightforward, yet very comfortable platform canopy with a sensual station building,” Bentham Crouwel’s Pascal Cornips said in a statement.

An arched roof concourse highlights a commitment to the city’s cultural heritage further by a new public welcoming hall that bifurcates the station from the rest of the city.

Two mid-rise diagonal towers will be erected as well, framing the station’s envelope against the city in a picturesque way that aids in wayfinding and aesthetic considerations. On-site solar panels generate energy enough to make the new station a net-positive project.

There was no timeframe given for the beginning of construction. The project is expected to be realized sometime between 2023 and 2025.