Chengdu, Sichuan, China
Led by Wen Qun and the design team from aoe, the design for the new 353.9-square-meter Sino-Italian Cultural Exchange City Reception Hall and The Chinese Cultural Hall is composed of houses, courtyards, corridors, and landscapes.
“Scenery” is an inseparable element of architecture.
The architecture originates from scenery, is derived from scenery, merges with scenery, and eventually becomes a part of the scenery.
It fully embodies the Eastern wisdom of Taoism, nature, and the unity of man and nature.
At the onset of the design process, the architects had hoped to find an intersection of Chinese and Western cultural differences: the overall layout concept of the site was taken from the “ruyi,” used by China to gift foreign envoys since ancient times as a symbol of friendly relations and peace between the two countries.
The east and west pavilions are connected by a cultural corridor, and it is surrounded by ponds and bamboo forests.
The Chinese Cultural Hall and the Chinese-Italian Cultural Hall use Italian squares as their spatial prototypes.
Through the creation of scenery, form, meaning, and emotion, they interpret the cultural philosophy of the harmony between man and nature in the Eastern world.
The Chinese Cultural Hall is located to the east of the Sino-Italian Cultural Exchange Center.
It is reached from the Sino-Italian Pavilion through the cultural corridor surrounded by bamboo forests.
The Chinese Cultural Hall is composed of multifunctional halls, meeting rooms, restaurants, piano pavilions, and tea rooms, and the design is filled with oriental charm.
The original site of the site is a bamboo forest, with a pond on the west side. The starting point is to preserve the bamboo forest as much as possible and to integrate the building into the bamboo forest.
The functions are scattered throughout the bamboo forest, and the courtyard wall separates the inner and outer courtyards.
Three interior courtyards are interspersed so that the indoor space, courtyard, and bamboo forest tend to look at each other.
A Chinese-style modern landscape garden is arranged in the courtyard to create a unique interior landscape.
Stepping into the bamboo forest, stepping down, the piano room is hidden under the bamboo forest.
The sound of the piano, the sound of the wind, the swaying sound of bamboo leaves, and the light and shadow dancing under the bamboo forest are all integrated.
Out of the bamboo forest, the tea room floats above the pond, full of sunlight, suddenly enlightened.
Looking to the west, the Zhongyi Pavilion is reflected in the quiet water lily pond
The architectural form adopts a traditional wooden frame to carry out a modern translation and uses circular geometric elements.
The continuous cross-shaped arch column extends from the interior to the exterior, and a transparent glass curtain wall eliminates the boundary, naturally drawing the outdoor scenery into the interior.
The outdoor continuous circular hollow corridor frame creates a varied and quiet light and shadow experience.
The courtyard wall extends from the cultural corridor, passing through the bamboo forests, connecting the houses in series, resembling the freehand brushwork and relaxation of Chinese calligraphy.
The opposite view window hole on the courtyard wall is shaped like a drop of water, symbolic of nature.
Project: Sino-Italian Cultural Exchange City Reception Hall and The Chinese Cultural Hall
Architects: aoe
Lead Architect: Wen Qun
Design Team: Ma Jianning, Fan Ruixue, Wang Ye, Chang Zhiyu, Pan Jichang, and Li Xiangting
Interiors Design Team: Zhu Dan, Du Jing, Liu Jingyi, and Xue Yawen,
Structural Engineers: CSCEC AECOM Consultants Co., Ltd.
Client: Tianfu Investment Group Co., Ltd.
Photographers: Arch-Exist Photography
