Architect Ma Yansong explains how his studio MAD combined historical and contemporary elements for its first train station in this talk, hosted by Dezeen for the Beijing architecture practice.
The one-on-one conversation between Yansong and Dezeen editor Tom Ravenscroft was held to celebrate the opening of the project, named Train Station in the Forest.
MAD's first station design, the 354,000-square-metre building in Jiaxing, China, is centred around a full-scale replica of a historic station house built in 1907 but destroyed by bombing in 1937.
It marries contemporary elements with details copied from the original building.
The station is situated beside a public park
The rebuilt structure forms the north entrance to the station, leading down into two sunken waiting halls. Glass facades and large skylights allow natural light to flood the space while providing travellers with a view of the structure's historic elements. During the discussion, Yansong explained how the combination of traditional and contemporary elements was essential to the design process.
"I wanted to make the whole experience more cultural, more contextual," said Yansong.
"You have the two elements in a collage together, there's a historical moment, and modern moment and they exist together," he said.

Read: MAD unveils sunken Train Station in the Forest in Jiaxing

According to Yansong, the design is also intended to be "about mo...