Commuting has been universally accepted as one of life’s great miseries. Whether you are wedged under someone’s armpit on a delayed morning train or dodging puddles whilst waiting on a concrete platform, it is rarely the highlight of anyone’s day.
But these seven stations might just change your mind. The Prix Versailles is the architecture prize that’s already handed out its verdicts on the world’s most beautiful hotels, restaurants, airports and museums this year, and has now revealed its shortlist of the world’s most beautiful train stations for 2026.
The prize has run annually since 2015, held at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters, and each year’s selection is chosen by an international jury of architects, designers, artists and public figures, judged on architectural excellence, innovation, how well a project responds to its cultural context, and also its commitment to sustainability. Three of this year’s seven stations will go on to receive additional World Titles, Prix Versailles, Interior or Exterior, at a ceremony in December.
All seven stations are presented as equal finalists, but the most striking entry is arguably Monte Sant’Angelo Station in Naples, which opened last year.
Designed by artist Anish Kapoor alongside Future Systems and AL_A, it’s reportedly inspired by Dante’s Inferno. Sitting 48 metres underground, two monumental corten steel and aluminium openings lead down into a rough-walled subterranean world that evokes Mount Vesuvius, a cave and the ancient legend of the Cumaean Sibyl, before carrying passengers back up to the surface.
Rome’s Colosseo – Fori Imperiali Station also takes a theatrical approach, treating the descent to the platforms as a literal journey through the city’s history, with an aperture offering transferring passengers an unexpected glimpse of the Colosseum above. In Riyadh, the National Museum Station designed by Arup wraps its entrance in a lattice concrete shell modelled on the topography of Tuwaiq Mountain, with triangular openings inspired by traditional Najdi architecture revealing a glowing blue interior beyond.
Elsewhere on the list, Town Hall Station in Melbourne earns its place for its cathedral-like underground concourse, held up by eight tree-like columns beneath a coppery vaulted ceiling.
Lyon’s Part-Dieu Station has doubled in size to cope with its position as one of Europe’s busiest interchanges, while Riyadh’s second entry, the Western Station, takes inspiration from desert dunes, its undulating roofline shading a small ecosystem of shops, a mosque and pedestrian squares built around the tracks.
Rounding out the list is the LAX/Metro Transit Center in Los Angeles, its sweeping sculptural canopies designed to minimise air conditioning use through natural ventilation, with solar panels covering roughly half the building’s energy demand.
The world’s seven most beautiful stations of 2026
- Town Hall Station, Melbourne, Australia
- Lyon Part-Dieu Station, Lyon, France
- Colosseo – Fori Imperiali Station, Rome, Italy
- Monte Sant’Angelo Station, Naples, Italy
- National Museum Station, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- Western Station, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- LAX/Metro Transit Center, Los Angeles, USA
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