New building of 1958

The new station building was opened in June 1958. The architect was Helmuth Conradi (1903-1973),^[7] who had already designed the entrance building of Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof, which was opened in 1955. The defining component is the entrance hall, which has a glass facade opening to the station forecourt that runs from the floor to the eaves. A very thin canopy marks the main entrance; its cladding with gold-anodised aluminum plates refers to the importance of the watch and jewelry industry for Pforzheim.

Inside the hall, strips on the ceiling that continue along the back wall are used for indirect lighting. The lobby is framed by two granite walls, windowless on the left and with a station clock and a large trapezoidal window on the right. Service rooms open onto the platform. Two annexes with the station restaurant and a waiting room for buses extend beyond the line made by the front of the entrance building.^[8][9]

In the main hall there is a large wall relief by Josef Karl Huber,^[7] on the theme of the "Gold City [Pforzheim] at the gate of the Black Forest" (Goldstadt an der Schwarzwaldpforte), which includes a dynamic pattern of swinging curves. The architect Conradi and the artist Huber had met in an English prisoner of war camp and spent two years together there.^[10] The building has been described as "one of the finest and most modern station building of Deutsche Bundesbahn"^[11] and has been listed as a cultural monument of the post-war period since 1989.^[7] The listing was instigated by plans of Deutsche Bundesbahn to replace a counter by a travel centre on the ground floor of the station. The heritage office then placed the station under protection, so that the necessary alterations did not alter the original nature of the building.

The refurbishment of the station started at the beginning of February 2011. Three lifts were put into operation in June 2012, providing barrier-free access to the platforms.^[12]

In a second construction phase, starting in October 2015, the platforms on the tracks 1, 2/3, 4/5 and 103/104^[13] were raised to 55 centimetres above the top of the rail to allow easier and sometimes stepless access to the trains.^[14][15]

The work was due to be completed in spring 2017.^[13] The conversion cost €7.3 million, of which the city of Pforzheim funded €1.8 m.^[7]

West of the main station, Abellio Rail Baden-Württemberg plans to build a depot with sidings between the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2019.^[16]

Long distance

Regional services

• Entrance hall
• Regio-Shuttle at bay platform 104
• Albtal-Verkehrs-Gesellschaft Stadtbahn set in Pforzheimer Hauptbahnhof