A TRAIN STATION IN THE FOREST

Located at the center of Jiaxing, a historic city 100 kilometers southwest of Shanghai, the project replaces a dysfunctional train station that had stood at the site between 1995 and 2019.

PROJECT: Jiaxing Train Station, Jiaxing, China; ARCHITECTS: MAD Architects

As the urbanization of China in recent years has recently developed, so too has the hardware and technology development related to transportation infrastructure. The corresponding transportation facilities buildings, such as railway stations and new airports, however, have not improved their spatial and architectural qualities at the same rate. Train stations have instead grown far beyond the human scale, standing like imposing palaces in Chinese city centers surrounded by wide main roads, viaducts, and vast empty squares.

In response to this common trend, MAD founding partner Ma Yansong advised that “we should rethink and redefine the spatial patterns of such transportation infrastructure buildings in China. We can break away from the common pursuit of grandiose monumental buildings and make them urban public spaces with transport functions, natural ecology and cultural life, where citizens are happy to go, stay, meet, and enjoy.”

A new sunken train station designed with a human scale

Jiaxing Train Station was first built in 1907 and was destroyed over half a century ago. The station that was constructed in 1995 to replace the original station had an area of only 4,000 square meters and was equipped with outdated passenger facilities unsuitable for a rapidly expanding city.

MAD’s design breaks away from the usual pursuit of monumental transportation structures with a full-scale recreation of the original 1907 station, as well as a “floating” metal roof lofted above the expanded site equipped with solar panels that power the station.