Of all the scenic vistas of Kuala Lumpur, it is, perhaps, the railway station that surely captures the imagination of any foreign traveller. Standing like a confection of domes and minarets, clad in white as though iced for a feast, the station completed in 1911 under the aegis of the aforementioned A.B. Hubback – was the third to serve the city. Its style, Indo-Saracenic in flavour, evokes the romantic East as dreamt by empire-builders and Orientalists. One half expects a troupe of turbaned guards or the arrival of a princely Maharajah. Yet this station is more than fantasy – it has conveyed governors and sultans alike, and it was instrumental in breathing life into the economic arteries of the colonial Malaya. Today it remains an architectural delight – like a freshly-baked cake covered in buttercream icing in the midst of Kuala Lumpur’s urban sprawl.

Malayan Railway Administration Building

Across from the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station, the FMS Railway Administration Office was designed by Government Architect Arthur Benison Hubback. Construction began in 1914, three years after the station's completion, and finished in September 1917. It was one of Hubback's last government buildings and his final work in Kuala Lumpur before he left for England to fight in the First World War, never to return. Like the station, it reflects the Indo-Saracenic style, crowned by four large domes-the central dome with a cupola and three domes on staircase towers-plus four smaller domes. The three-storey façade features arcaded arches: pointed horseshoe arches with pilasters on the ground floor, semi-circular arches with triple columns on the first, and interlocked pointed arches above. The porte-cochère is flanked by minarets and small chhatris, while keyhole arches add ornamentation. Today, the building still serves as the headquarters of Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM).