Media in Jinan, Shandong province recently launched a public opinion poll about whether or not to reconstruct Tianjin-Pukou Railway Station, which was demolished over 20 years ago. However, People’s Daily criticized the poll, arguing that the cultural relic cannot be saved through reconstruction.

Tianjin-Pukou Railway Station, designed by German architect Hermann Fischer and completed in 1912, was once a world-famous landmark in China. Unfortunately, it was dismantled in 1992 to ease transportation pressure.

The demolished station is not in good enough condition to be effectively rebuilt, as crucial design and construction details are both missing, and materials and technology have changed since the original station was built, the article explained. Even if a new station was built as an exact copy of the old one, it wouldn't be authentic.

Xie Chensheng, an expert in relics and museum studies, also opposes the reconstruction, saying that Article 22 in the Act of the Preservation of Cultural Relics stipulates that immovable historical relics, if destroyed totally, should be conserved in their current state rather than reconstructed. Xie dislikes the idea of reconstruction because it would recreate the original form without using the former technology and materials, which is not in line with the principles of law and relics conservation.

Any building can be restored technically, but it is hard to reproduce a building's individual history and culture. It is better to build a heritage monument on the original site, reminding people not to allow relics to be destroyed in the first place, the paper stressed.