The Old Railway Station in Mora it’s an iconic building that belongs to the National Railway Heritage, a building that is deeply founded in the memory of the local inhabitants and all of those that through time passed by, a building that is worth to preserve and activate, giving it new functions that bring the living dynamic that is once had.

The “Estação Imagem” (Space of Production, Promotion and Exhibition of Photography) is conceived in a linear way. The two main existing buildings are refurbished, one new building is proposed and the old Railway Station Waiting Platform is reinterpreted as a linking element between the three buildings.

The proposal is focused in the pragmatic definition of uses, that brings to life the existing buildings, actives it’s use, clarifies the functional and distributive relations between spaces while promoting new built areas that incorporate a contemporary presence through the iconographic approach of the facades. These areas respond to the direct need of large exhibition areas, spaces which are not possible in the existing buildings due to their dimensional constraints.

The symbiosis of the existing buildings with the contemporary intervention is clearly underlined with no superimpositions, in an harmonic process that clarifies time and reinforces the historical value of the buildings as a whole.
The past is not frozen or musealized, but is lived and projected as future in a diachronic dialogue that reaches a single unity, functionally operational and serving the community of Mora and the expected visitors.

The contemporary approach and tectonic of the new built area incorporates an intriguing iconographic pattern that creatively evokes the world of Photography as a basic theme for Estação Imagem.
This theme runs through the project as a referential element that is founded in a re-interpretation of the photographic diaphragm.

The photographic diaphragm acts as an iris, allowing the accurate control of light and depth of field, though a complex and dynamic mechanism of superimposed blades. This technique is applied as a façade system in a non-dynamic manner, setting light levels for the interior spaces, through the variation of the diaphragm diameters (analogy in relation to the different sizes of cameras and lenses), light admission, for light and shade control according to the interior spaces functions.