Fuzhou Strait Culture and Art Centre Fu Jian, China | 2019

Architects: PES-Architects Ltd.
Architects of Record: China Construction Engineering Design Group Co., Ltd.
General Contractor: China Construction Engineering Design Group Co., Ltd.
Client: Fuzhou New Area Development & Investment Group Co., Ltd.
Photographers: Marc Goodwin, Yong Zhang, and Virgile Bertrand
Design Team: Pekka Salminen, Xu Zongwu, YueXing Tang, Martin Lukasczyk, YuHui Song, YueXing Tang, WeiXing Dong, ZongRui Chen, and LinLi Lai

The center is an innovative expression of Chinese traditional culture. Its design is inspired by jasmine, a world-renowned symbol of Chinese culture, as well as the city flower of Fuzhou.

Five main buildings constitute five white jasmine petals, through which runs the Liangcuo River like a flower stalk. Several small petals make up a waterborne platform that goes deep into the Minjiang River. Together, they build up a magnificent Chinese picture featuring “blossoming jasmine flowers over a moonlit river.”

The center is built with Chinese traditional materials of ceramics and bamboo. Ceramics originated in China, and bamboo is the symbol of the Chinese spirit and endowment. More importantly, Fujian is one of the producing areas of ceramics and bamboo, which saves a lot of cost for the production and transportation of materials.

The interior design adopts heavy bamboo and art ceramics, whose patterns are respectively derived from those of jasmine twigs and peony twigs on ceramics of the Yuan Dynasty. More than 1.5 million ceramic pieces of “peony twigs” patterns, rooted in a standard hexagon, are “blooming” on the walls of the opera house.

The concert hall is composed of 25,000 pieces of white art ceramics, which are integrated into the standard dimension of 555mm equilateral triangles, to build up the oriental hall temperament with the “wrinkles of traditional Chinese rice paper.”

Meanwhile, the zirconia silencing microporous art decorative ceramics that are designed for this project have filled the gap in the Chinese market.