Architect Meinhard von Gerkan sued Deutsche Bahn for distorting his plan by exchanging his ceiling, designed to resemble a cathedral's nave, for one made of flat metal designed by another architect. German copyright rules protect the integrity of work by artists and architects.

"We are very happy about this decision,'' said Juergen Hillmer, a partner in von Gerkan's firm, speaking by mobile phone from the main station. "It means this current ceiling will be torn down and replaced.''

The $840 million station, the biggest non-terminus rail hub in Europe, is located in the wasteland left behind after the fall of the Berlin Wall, meters away from Angela Merkel's Chancellery. Its completion, in time for the June start of the World Cup soccer tournament, capped 15 years of rebuilding to unite the separate infrastructures of east and west Berlin.

"The chamber is of the opinion that the flat ceiling seriously distorted the architectural design,'' the Berlin regional court said in a statement. Deutsche Bahn's one-sided decision to change the plan without consulting von Gerkan "is a breach of architects' rights as set out in the copyright law,'' the court said.

Massive Disruption

Deutsche Bahn said in an e-mailed statement that it will challenge the Berlin court's ruling. The station handles 300,000 passengers a day and 1,100 trains, and tearing the ceiling down would create a massive disruption of traffic, Norbert Giersdorff, a spokesman for the company, said in a telephone interview.

"Deutsche Bahn urged the architect in vain to reduce costs before the flat ceiling was built,'' the company statement said, vowing "further legal action.''

Von Gerkan previously described the dispute over the railway station as the bitterest of his 40-year career.

Before changing his ceiling design, Deutsche Bahn had forced him to slice 100 meters off a steel-and-glass roof overarching the tracks, making the station asymmetrical when viewed from a distance, rather than symmetrical as it was in von Gerkan's plan.