With the city of Shanghai continually changing Chinese firm Archiplein proposed a way to preserve old culture and future projection through a phoenix monument as that fills each part of ruins. They chose the theater as the archetype of the Chinese popular way of cultural expression. During the day it is a museum which displays local history and at night it is illuminated and acts as a meeting point for the population.

The monument is a temporary structure.

‘This project, with strong constraints, counts three party walls and a perforated wall of windows, untouchable. The stake, here, is not to operate a radical transformation of space but rather to sublimate the qualities and the feelings already present on the spot so as to make understandable the overall volume and the perception of the play of the openings in frontage. Conceptually, the project is composed of 3 free boxes which are articulated in the volume by composing a course centered on the major space of life.

Materialization/dematerialization of these programmatic boxes offers sometimes the perception of virgin space sometimes the perception of the project. This mutation takes place thanks to the curtain which, in a minimal way, plays the role of ephemeral wall.’

Location: Shanghai, China
Date: 2007 – 2009
Type: cultural
Exhibition: Geneva summer 2007