Jinhua Architecture Park
Ai Weiwei

17 pavilions in a park along the Yiwu River, dedicated to the memory of the poet Ai Qing.

Jinhua is a small city southwest of Shanghai with an ancient history and a thriving economy based on industry, agriculture and tourism.

In 2002 designer and curator Ai Weiwei invited 16 architects from around the world to design a pavilion for a park on a ribbon of land that stretches over 2 kilometers along the Yiwu River. The Park is dedicated to the memory of his father, the poet Ai Qing, who was born In Jinhua.

Exhibition Space
Tatiana Bilbao
Mexico

Photo: Iwan Baan

In Chinese gardens the point of observation is determined; the observer was guided by the design (pathways, corridors, bridges, tunnels, pavilions, or towers) to move to this points.

In the same way, a Chinese garden can never be completely surveyed from a certain point.

It consists of more or less isolated sections which must be discovered gradually and enjoyed as the beholder continues his stroll: he must follow the paths wander through tunnels ponder the water, reach a pavilion from which a fascinating view unfolds. He is led on into a composition that is never completely revealed. These gardens are observed and contemplated gradually, in time, through a succession of scenes, designed to unfold one after another.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

The Exhibition room is a game full of surprises, discovering tunnels, pathways and terraces, the pavilion guides the user though its plaza and into and onto the building all the time.

Restaurant
Johan de Wachter Architects
Fun Design Consultancy
The Netherlands

Photo: Iwan Baan

The restaurant's rigid but elegant structure of steel, stone and bamboo represents an interpretation of the Chinese dining culture. The traditional restaurant typology of "watching and being watched" is emphasized in the project.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Three 'speeds' of eating are integrated in one building. This assortment is provided by 'vending machines' (street food), a '3D tablescape' (medium food), and a 'lounge restaurant' (slow food).

Photo: Iwan Baan

Restaurant 13 is integrated in the Park through its steel-bamboo structure providing shadow and shelter. Its open ground floor plan merges the restaurant with the park without a specific border. The detailing of the roofscape refers to the way traditional Chinese architecture deals with the nature elements.

Book Bar
Michael Maltzan
USA

Photo: Iwan Baan

The project's concept expands on an important confluence between the book and architecture in Chinese history: in the third century B.C.E., a descendant of the philosopher Confucius concealed several of his texts in a wall when the emperor ordered all Confucian writings burned.

From this historic juncture of books and building, the pavilion's form pulls its central wall outward into two unequal, cantilevered arms, each concealing within a public space for learning.

Photo: Iwan Baan

The pavilion's smaller wing is perforated by an abstract pattern, forming a reading porch open to the park beyond. Each wing's stepped floors allow either space to be used as an impromptu amphitheater for literary discussions or poetry readings.

Photo: Iwan Baan

The ministructure's interior concatenates a series of visual relationships, perspectival projections, and moiré fields, each layer adding to an understanding of the pavilion and the surrounding landscape.

As visitors move toward, into, and through these reciprocal spaces, the pavilion reveals itself - its bent, tapered form appears to expand and contract, its perforated walls and openings creating an ever-changing montage of spaces between, within, and beyond the ministructure and the viewer.

Multimedia Room
Knowspace
Erhard An-He Kinzelbach
Austria

Photo Iwan Baan

The design interprets multimedia in its broadest sense and the programmatic content aims at addressing the individual as well as the collective application of multimedia.

The pavilion's large glazed facade opens towards the pathway and serves both as entrance and interior projection screen. During screenings, the mirror images visible on the glass façade from the park serve as an electronic billboard, attracting passers-by to enter.

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Two idealized projector cones act as space constituting elements which deform the adaptive figure of an initially tubular box. The virtual space of the projecting light becomes the generating moment for physical space. The single surface is transformed into an ergo-topographic landscape that, supplemented by seating cushions, renders additional furniture unnecessary. As a result, a versatile and polyvalent space serves not only the various aspects of the multimedia experience, but also as a gathering, lounging and resting space in the middle of the park, superimposing the digital with the physical realm.

Welcome Centre
Till Schweizer
Germany

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

The Ancient Tree
Christ & Gantenbein
Switzerland

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Newspaper Stand
Toshiko Mori
USA

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

The building is a narrow folded plane that has two faces, reflecting the nature of the site as it sits between the City and the Aiqing Cultural Park. The North face, looking toward the City, displays the News while the South face, looking toward the Museum, River and Park is contemplative and invites the display of Art.

Baby Dragon
HHF architects
Switzerland

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Tea House
Liu JiaKun
China

Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Bridge Tea House
Fernando Romero
Mexico


Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Coffee House
Wang Shu
China


Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Internet Cafe
Ding Yi & Chen Shu Yu
China


Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Multifunctional Space
Yung Ho Chang
China


Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Reading Space
Herzog & de Meuron
Ascan Mergenthaler
The Netherlands


Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

The design consists of "mutant" forms that can be varied as topographic elements with precise functions (a bench, a roof, a platform, etc.)

The Manager Room
Buchner & Bruendler Arcitecten
Switzerland


Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Toilet
Wang Xing Wei & Xu Tian Tian
China


Photo: Iwan Baan

Photo: Iwan Baan

Archeological Archives
Ai Weiwei
China


Photo: Iwan Baan

The nearly completed 17th pavilion, designed by Ai Weiwei, is a small museum to hold Chinese ancient pottery. The building takes its form from the simple, vernacular shape of a house - walls with a gabled roof.


Photo: Iwan Baan

The idea is that half of it is above ground, and from this particular angle it looks like a normal house with a pitched roof. From the other side, however, you can see that in fact half of it is submerged - in section the building is hexagonal. The pathways in the forecourt are also hexagonal, in fact. The building is a single long slab, cast in reinforced concrete.

/Ai Weiwei

The slender shape of the building allows it to fit seamlessly into the park landscape. The length and widthe of the building has been carefully calculated according to a base measurement of six meters not only to reinforce the six sides of the basic building shape, but also to reinsure that the building is neither too large nor too small. The structure is poured on-site concrete, with the board form of the concrete displaying the texture of local bamboo weaving.

Photographed by Iwan Baan