in his most ambitious exploration of photography to date — the central focus of his practice since the late 1980s — stan douglas has reconstructed nine remarkable but forgotten moments from history that took place at the original pennsylvania station in new york city. the landmark railroad station, which occupied two city blocks in midtown manhattan from 1910–1963, was an architectural marvel in the beaux-arts style, with its imposing colonnade columns and concourse covered by magnificent glass domes. its controversial demolition, to make way for madison square garden, went on to catalyze the architectural preservation movement in the united states.
stirred by this rich historical backdrop, douglas drew on archival research to capture the serendipity and poignancy of daily life for his artwork, ‘penn station’s half century’.
‘penn station’s half century’ comprises nine vignettes arranged into four thematic panels, whose historical scenes were painstakingly re-created by douglas over a four-day shoot in vancouver. this process called for more than four hundred actors to be scanned and dressed in one of five hundred unique period costumes, before being posed digitally. douglas then photographed the live actors, and seamlessly combined them with digitally-recreated interiors of the demolished station, whose architectural elements were generated through an intensive CG post-production process.