Between 1863 and 1867, the engineers Klein, Georg Morlok, Carl Julius Abel and later city architect Adolf Wolff[9] created this second station, with 8 tracks, featuring a building with grandiose arches in the Renaissance Revival style.

[10] After undergoing numerous changes, including moving the station tower from the main façade to the wing at the Schlossgarten, construction began in 1914 on Cannstatter Strasse.

A plan developed in the mid-1950s for a S-Bahn proposed a four-track station with two 175-metre (574 ft)-long island platforms under the Hauptbahnhof, which would be linked by two tracks towards the city centre and four towards Feuerbach/Bad Cannstatt.

The original plans called for a road leading directly to the building, but Bonatz eliminated this in favour of the Lautenschlagerstraße, as it is now known, which ends at the Kleine Schalterhalle (small ticket hall).

Christoph Ingenhoven, the architect of the new station, expressed the opinion that much of Bonatz's original visions, which tended towards "a knight's castle or Valhalla", can still be found in the current building.

[20] Since the existing tracks to the old station continued in use until the commissioning of the new one, the competition plan proposed, at the suggestion of the Generaldirektion der Staats-Eisenbahnen (General Headquarters of the State Railways), the building of a three-span train shed.

[39] After the Second World War, when the tower suffered little damage, a rotating Mercedes star with a diameter of five metres was installed on the turret roof in 1952 and still marks the building's silhouette.

The terminal station hall was built with a reinforced concrete wall on the side near the platforms to reduce the effects of a possible brake failure.

In the course of the Stuttgart 21 project, the passageways that now lead to the cross-platform hall are to be closed by a glass structure, but the basic tripartite division of the round arches is to be retained.

Originally, the station forecourt, which had a pavilion in the centre, lay in front of the north exit;[38] it was later used as a parking area and included an access to the passage under Arnulf-Klett-Platz.

[23] The former Königstor, which had stood at the beginning of Unteren Königstraße since 1809 and actually fulfilled the function of a city gate, was perceived as a traffic obstacle after the construction of the station and was removed in 1922.

In the course of the Stuttgart 21 project, the wall of the large ticket hall facing the station is to be breached in order to make a direct access to the planned distribution level behind it.

[23] The staircase to the platform area would be removed, otherwise the width of the passage would not be sufficient for the expected flows of people and the spatial separation from the main hall would inevitably be obliterated by the installation of additional stairs.

[23] The approximately 20-metre (65 ft 7 in)-wide[49] north wing consisted of a cubic area for the railway postal service,[50] which was used by Deutsche Post until July 2010, and adjoining office space that were last used by the Intercity Hotel and the Federal Police.

[32] In a disaster or military emergency, part of the underground parking lot would be provided with beds (separated by pressure doors); the technical rooms, kitchen, sanitary installations, water and air conditioning for the bunker are located on the second basement level.

There has been widespread resentment of the entire project to place the main lines underground, leading to significant protests, in particular in response to the felling of some 260 huge and old trees.

[72] During the debate surrounding the project, critics proposed several alternative plans, including the extensive refurbishment and the progressive redevelopment of the existing station under the concept of Kopfbahnhof 21 (terminus 21).

[75] Deutsche Bahn AG estimates that the expenditure of approximately €110 million will be required for the continued "third-party use" of the Bonatz building, which is not part of the Stuttgart 21 project.

[81] In July 2015, a further amendment to the plan was announced, which means that the smoke extraction building in Sängerstraße will remain unchanged externally, but will receive a significantly more efficient ventilation system.

[83] The comfort of passenger movements resulting from the planned entrances, footbridges, stairs, lifts and platforms was examined in a pedestrian flow analysis.

The rail infrastructure is designed as a zero-energy building: the air conditioning will be operated exclusively using geothermal energy, assisted by the cooling effect of incoming trains.

[10] Experiments have shown that the station concourse will be lit naturally by the high-light eyes for up to 14 hours daily and will be able to cope during this period without artificial light.

[118] On 23 April 2015, the Federal Railway Authority approved, among other things, the construction of two escape staircases per platform and changes to the shells surrounding the four direct entrances from the outside.

[44][129] A two-storey underground engineering building of 1,800 square metres (19,000 sq ft) was built under the former parking lot at the northern exit at a planned cost of €7.6 million[133] between April 2012[134] and October 2013 (when the construction of the shell was completed)[44][135] On 12 March 2012, the construction contract for the underground station, including the West, Cannstatter Straße and Nesenbach channels and the station access tunnel, was awarded to a consortium of the Züblin (manager) and Strabag companies.

[154] Civil engineering work at the station was stopped at the beginning of March 2015 because a permit from the Federal Railway Authority for the construction of additional escape staircases was missing.

[155] On 26 January 2016, one year later than scheduled under the August 2014 timetable, work began on casting the floor slab in the first excavation pit of the station, initially as the base plate in what is known as the Medienkanal (middle channel).

Following a change in the plan at the beginning of 2011, this figure doubled to 6,800,000 cubic metres (240,000,000 cu ft), necessitating an amendment to the license in relation to its scope and impact.

[131] On 25 June 2012, it was announced that a public hearing was required to consider Deutsche Bahn's proposal to double the groundwater withdrawal to 6,800,000 cubic metres (240,000,000 cu ft), delaying the construction work (according to media reports, to 2014).

A traffic forecast for 2025 anticipates around 207,600 long-distance and regional passengers, including 118,800 from the direction of Feuerbach and Bad Cannstatt and 88,800 from the Filder Tunnel, Obertürkheim or Untertürkheim.

[169] Stuttgarter Netz AG, a consortium of several private railway companies, intends to operate part of the existing terminal station.