[1] The station is located in the Historic Centre of Porto, which has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and as a National Monument of Portugal.

[3] The murals represent moments in the country's history and the multicolored panels depict rural scenes showing the people of various regions.

[6] In 1887, José Maria Ferreira and António Júlio Machado, aldermen, presented to the municipal council a project for a Central Station in Porto, elaborated by Hippolyte de Bare.

[6] The following year, Emídio Navarro, Minister of Public Works, authorised the construction of a railway line between Campanhã and a central station to be built near Praça de D.

[6] It was finally decided to build the station on the site of the Benedictine Convent of São Bento da Avé Maria, which had been ordered built by King Manuel I of Portugal in 1518.

[6] The design/build project was entrusted to Porto architect José Marques da Silva, whose design was influenced by French Beaux-Arts architecture.

[6] In October 2016, Porto Vivo-Sociedade de Reabilitação Urbana ordered that public work in constructing a hostel on the lateral facade of the station should be stopped until an official application for a license was obtained.

A building of geometric rigor, in the Beaux-Arts style that was particularly popular in France,[9] it has a central body corresponding to the principal atrium and on either extreme two volumes.

[6] To the left of the entrance is a scene depicting the Battle of Arcos de Valdevez and Egas Moniz before Alfonso VII of Castile, while to the right, is D. João I in Oporto, with his fiancée (with an unfortunate mechanical crossing through the middle of the picture), and the Conquest of Ceuta.

[1] The upper parts of the frieze are lined with polychromatic (multicolored) azulejos depicting a chronology of some forms of transport used by people in various areas of Portugal.

[6] The lower and upper frame of the frieze consists of a line of tile in blue, browns and yellow in a stylized geometric pattern.

[6] Below it is another composition that represents meeting between the knight Egas Moniz and Alfonso VII of León in Toledo (12th century), offering his life, his wife and his sons following the siege of Guimarães.

[6] To the left, a vision of the procession of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios in Lamego, an exhaustive description and detail showing the multitudes within an urban setting.