Tunnel vision: Though monumental in scale, Berlin's new central station has a powerful internal drama.

For more than a century, traffic planners have been eagerly conceiving ambitious railway solutions for the German capital. An inner-city railway viaduct was first constructed during the era of the Kaiser and still snakes languidly through the urban fabric forming a vital east-west route for regional, national and international train services. Historically, the planners had also always wanted to establish a north-south link, making Berlin the rail crossroads of Europe. With German unification, the opportunity to put this into practice finally arose.

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Berlin's new Central Station occupies the site of the Lehrter Bahnhof, which, like many of the city's former rail termini, was demolished after the Second World War. Cupped in a bend of the River Spree, the site lies just to the north of the still evolving government district. A newly completed north-south link runs under the Spree and the nearby Tiergarten in a tunnel 15m below ground. At the point where it crosses the elevated east-west track, GMP have designed Europe's biggest and busiest rail intersection, capable of handling around 30 million passengers per year.

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The arrangement of the new station reflects the dynamic geometry of the tracks. The curvilinear sweep of the old elevated east-west axis intersects at an angle with two parallel, monumental blocks, 46m tall, which will ultimately house the headquarters of German Railways. The six tracks above ground are encased in a classic glazed platform vault, with the dark grey bridge buildings tracing the path of the intersecting lines below. The glass vault incorporates 2700sqm of solar modules that will provide a small fraction (around 2 per cent) of the building's energy requirements. Locked into a quintet of circulation concourses, the bridge buildings span a central station hall.

A battery of six panoramic glass lifts and 54 escalators transport passengers deep underground, but even in this subterranean realm you hardly ever lose sight of natural daylight. The simple act of changing trains is elevated into a spatial and visual experience that recalls the awesome visions of Piranesi. Pierced and penetrated by daylight, the new station evokes the grandeur of its historic predecessors reinterpreted for the current age. This passion to improve the quality of modern mobility has deep roots; well before GMP's 1993 competition win for the Lehrter Bahnhof, Meinhard von Gerkan had staged a travelling exhibition on the history of railway stations and designed the interior of a German express train.

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Modern railway stations, like airports, are becoming more concerned with the profitable distractions of shopping and Berlin is no exception. Though form and materials are convincingly resolved (Jorg Schlaich, Germany's most venerable structural engineer, was responsible for the slender elegance of the glass vaults, reinforced concrete bridges and many details), the traveller is besieged by shops. Out of a total building area of 70 000sqm, some 15 000sqm is dedicated to retail use. Yet despite this commercial presence, the new station is essentially a very lean building. Uncompromisingly straightforward in its technical resolution, it is also experientially generous in its internal handling of light and views.

And yet the project also reflects some major compromises between architect and client. The building budget was a staggering [euro]700 billion, but during construction German Railways embarked on a programme of cost cutting that has had some profound effects on the architecture. The length of the glazed vault, for instance, was reduced from its original sweep of 430m to 321m (110m less than the longest train), even though the glass panels had already been manufactured. Similarly, the client insisted on replacing the original vaulted ceiling over the eight underground platforms with a flat structure, another regrettable decision.

But despite these caveats the new Berlin Central Station is a heroic achievement that cannot be diminished by timidity on the client's part. Nor should the inevitable shopping infrastructure be allowed to temper the building's genuine architectural and spatial merits. Happily, there is at least one exception to the prevailing brashness of commerce; Meinhard von Gerkan personally designed the Oyster Bar, a homage to the famous eaterie in New York's Central Station, and a particularly appropriate addition to what is now possibly Europe's grandest and certainly its most central station.

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