Architect and MAD founder Ma Yansong has completed an art installation set within an abandoned market in China’s Guangdong province. Titled 'Timeless Beacon,' the project sees the three-story structure wrapped in reflective film and topped with a colorful cloth covering.

Located in the village of Taiping Xu, the installation occupies the former Taiping market, the village’s largest abandoned building. Once a bustling trading fair for fishermen, businesspeople, and villagers, dating back to the late Ming Dynasty, the market became abandoned in the 1980s as a younger generation moved from the village towards larger cities and online commerce lessened the need for physical marketplaces.

“I see many plants growing towards the sun from the gaps of the abandoned building,” explained Ma Yansong in a statement. “We hope to create a sense of vitality and rebirth from the ruins so that people can feel new energy and perception from the old structure, as well as a new understanding of time to this whole area.”

Yansong’s goal for the project was to create a “surreal scene” to spark people’s imagination. The resulting installation sees the three-story structure wrapped in a reflective film that mirrors the old surrounding streets and the market’s inner space. Above the building, a multimedia light device is enveloped in delicate pieces of colorful cloth, which transforms into a “lighthouse” at night.

The installation will remain in place until the summer of 2024.

News of the scheme comes days after it was revealed that MAD’s Lucas Museum of Narrative Art is approaching completion in Los Angeles, and weeks after the firm unveiled its design for a new dance center in Rotterdam. Last year, Archinect spoke with Ma Yansong in a wide-ranging discussion about the architect’s life, work, and philosophy.