There are railway stations you just pass through, and there's one where you stop and look up. Antwerp Central Station, in Belgium, has for decades been considered the most beautiful railway station in the world - and once you see it, it's hard to argue with the title. The locals don't call it a station, but "the cathedral of the railway."

The heart of the building is a dome 75 metres high, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. Beneath it stretches a marble staircase fit for a palace, surrounded by columns in every classical style - Doric, Tuscan, Ionic and Corinthian. The building incorporates over twenty kinds of marble and stone brought from all across Europe, and the central clock is framed by the city's coat of arms.

The station was opened by King Leopold II on August 11th, 1905, after twelve years of construction. The chief architect was Louis Delacenserie, and the metal-and-glass structure over the platforms is the work of engineers who knew that beauty and function don't have to exclude each other. Eight ornamental towers surround the central building, and the leaded-glass windows give it the look of a temple more than a transport hub.

A later renovation gave the station four levels and fourteen tracks, proving that old beauty and modern function can live under the same roof. That's a lesson worth keeping for anyone who thinks the new has to erase the old.

For a Balkan reader, where railway stations are often a byword for neglect and delays, Antwerp is almost a provocation. Can a station really be the pride of a city, and not just a place you want to leave as fast as possible? More than a hundred years ago the Belgians decided it could - and they're still right.