They announces the completion of Guardian Art
Center, the world’s first custom-built auction house and a new
hub for contemporary art in the heart of Beijing The hybrid design integrates 1,700 sqm versatile
exhibition space, state-of-the-art conservation facilities, a
hotel, restaurants and public transport infrastructure The building occupies a site of particular
historical importance, situated on the doorstep of the Forbidden
City and opposite the NAMOC (National Art Museum of China)
The inauguration will take place in spring 2018 to mark the 25th
anniversary of China Guardian, the country's oldest auction
house and the world’s fourth largest by volume of sales
Built on the doorstep of Beijing’s historic Forbidden City, the
Guardian Art Center is a new hybrid cultural institution that
reconciles the city’s traditional urban fabric and thriving
metropolitan energy with a diverse contemporary arts programming.
The Guardian Art Center is the world’s first ever custom-built
auction house, creating a new typology of a hybrid arts
institution in the heart of Beijing. Offering museum quality
galleries and state of the art conservation facilities, the
building is also a community resource with restaurants, a hotel,
flexible events spaces, and integrated public transport
infrastructure.
“The Guardian Art Center is a lot more than just a museum,” says
Ole Scheeren, principal of Büro Ole Scheeren. “It’s not a
hermetic institution, but rather an acknowledgement of the
hybrid state of contemporary culture. It is a Chinese puzzle of
interlocking cultural spaces and public functions that fuse art
and culture with events and lifestyle.”
Uniting Old and New
Designed as a sensitive insertion within the urban fabric of
Beijing, the Guardian Art Center’s architecture strikes a
delicate balance of old and new and pays homage to its
surroundings. The building’s lower portion is a series of nested
stone volumes that echo the scale and materiality of the
adjacent traditional hutong courtyard houses, while a floating
glass ring above exemplifies Beijing’s status as a global
metropolis.
The pixelated volumes made from grey basalt stone have been
carefully perforated with a lyrical pattern of circular lenses
that admit light to the building’s interior, based on an
abstraction of the historic Chinese painting Dwelling in the
Fuchun Mountains by the 14th-century painter Huang Gongwang, one
of China’s most celebrated landscape artists.
Resting atop the lower stone portion of the building is a
floating ring composed from window-sized glass elements in a
brick pattern. The ring’s placement atop the lower stone pixels
lends the building a sense of weight and gravitas that ties it
to Beijing’s architectural character. The contrast between the
structure’s complimentary elements creates a vibrant aesthetic
that acknowledges the complexity and multivalence of a
contemporary city.
“The two scales and textures of the building exist in an
inverted, dialectic relationship,” says Scheeren. “Typically,
bricks would be grey stone, but here they have been scaled up to
become large, floating glass panes. The scale of the upper
volume and the materiality of the glass enters into a dialogue
with the contemporary city, while the symbolism of the brick
reflects the adjacent hutong and represents the common people.
It becomes a statement of humbleness in proximity to the
imperial Palace, the Forbidden City. The building’s architecture
embeds multiple layers of abstracted cultural and historic
notions and captures the complex emotional spectrum of Beijing
with a very understated sense of monumentality.”
A Machine for Culture
The Guardian Art Center has been designed as an intricate tool
for culture and events. Its spaces are easy and intuitive to
navigate, but possess ample nuance and character to accommodate
the auction house’s diverse and ambitious programming.
At the heart of the building is a 1,700sqm column-free
exhibition space that has been designed for maximum flexibility.
Through a combination of movable partitions and ceiling systems,
the space quickly adapts to multiple uses, offering different
configurations for exhibitions, events and auctions.
The museum’s interlocking functions are arranged around this
central exhibition space. A series of smaller, more intimate
rooms accommodate other aspects of the auction house and provide
additional gallery space. Meanwhile, two large auction halls
provide a more formal setting, while an entire floor in the
basement is dedicated to state of the art restoration and
conservation facilities.
Moving up through the building, the stone pixels provide
discrete spaces to accommodate the center’s restaurants,
administrative offices and a book shop. The glass ring atop the
building houses a hotel, while a small tower inserted into the
middle of the ring provides educational facilities for seminars
and lectures.
This emphasis on versatility and variety reflects the Guardian
Art Center’s remit as a diverse and inclusive public space. “The
building’s configuration is intended to interconnect all of its
functions,” says Scheeren. “It’s a museum as well as a cultural
event machine. And it is also a space that incorporates
lifestyle elements and educational facilities. It proclaims a
new hybrid cultural institution.”
Art in Beijing
Constructed at the intersection of Wangfujing, Beijing’s most
famous shopping street, and Wusi Dajie, the site where China’s
New Cultural Movement originated after the Qing Dynasty, the
Guardian Art Center inhabits the space between culture and
commerce in a synthesis of Beijing’s heritage and future.
Positioned close to the Forbidden City and opposite the National
Art Museum of China (NAMOC), one of Mao Zedong’s Ten Great
Buildings, the building plays a pivotal role in shaping the
development of the city by reinserting a non-governmental space
for art and culture into the center of the city.
The significance of the site’s history had led to dozens of
architectural designs for its redevelopment rejected over the
past two decades by the Beijing planning bureau and preservation
commission, before Büro Ole Scheeren gained approval to realize
its design. “Our architecture has reconciled the city’s complex
narratives and offers a new perspective on the relationship
between the historic and modern city with a building that
reflects Chinese identity in a contemporary way,” says Scheeren.
“The completion of the Guardian Art Center positions
architecture together with arts and culture as essential to the
city’s future.”
About Ole Scheeren
He is a German-born architect and the principal of Büro Ole
Scheeren. His landmark projects shape the way we interact with
our cities and generate new social narratives in highly
integrative environments.
Scheeren is Büro-OS’s chief designer and responsible for
steering the company’s creative vision and strategic development.
His projects have won numerous awards, including World Building
of the Year 2015 and the CTBUH Urban Habitat Award 2014 for The
Interlace in Singapore, as well as the global CTBUH Best Tall
Building Award 2013 for the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing.
Highlighting the need for visionary, transformative solutions to
the challenges facing contemporary society, Scheeren’s
architecture is characterized by a 20 year commitment to
grounding this idealism within pragmatic, highly successful,
real world projects, including the completion of three major
developments in 2017; the MahaNakhon skyscraper in Bangkok, the
DUO mixed-use towers in Singapore, and the Guardian Art Center
in Beijing.
Büro Ole Scheeren’s large-scale projects are complemented by
Scheeren’s independent collaborations with filmmakers and
artists, as well as research projects exploring his personal
interest in cinema, media and narrative space. He created
Archipelago Cinema (2012); a floating auditorium in a lagoon on
the Andaman Sea for Thailand’s Film on the Rocks festival (also
featuring at the 2012 Architecture Biennale in Venice, Italy),
and Mirage City Cinema (2013) for the Sharjah Art Foundation,
paying homage to the Gulf city’s historic architecture.
Prior to founding Büro Ole Scheeren, Scheeren was a director and
partner at OMA, where he was responsible for the practice’s
expansion into Asia as well as its work for Prada, with flagship
stores in New York (2001) and Los Angeles (2004). Scheeren was
also the partner-in-charge of the groundbreaking CCTV
Headquarters for China’s national broadcaster in Beijing (2010).
Subverting the traditional typology of the skyscraper, this
monumental building challenges architectural convention and
creates a giant loop of interconnected activities of people and
the city.
Alongside his architectural work, Scheeren has created
exhibition designs for New York’s Museum of Modern Art and
London’s Hayward Gallery, contributed to triennials in Beijing
and Milan, and participated in the Rotterdam Film Festival. He
has been a TED speaker and regularly lectures at international
institutions and conferences, as well as serving on juries for
architectural awards and competitions.
Having lived and worked across Europe, the United States and
Asia, Ole Scheeren was educated at the
universities of Karlsruhe and Lausanne, and completed his
studies at London’s Architectural Association. He was awarded
the RIBA Silver Medal – the most prestigious European prize in
architecture education.
Project:
Guardian Art Center
Type:
Auction House Headquarters and Cultural Complex
Status:
Commission: January 2011
Construction Start: 2013
Completion: 2018
Client:
China Guardian Auction
(Beijing Huangdu Property Development Company Ltd.)
Location:
No.1 Wangfujng Street, Beijing, China
Site:
Site Area: approx. 6,320 m2
Scale:
Construction Area: approx. 55,988 m2
(above ground: 29,255 m2, below ground: 26,733 m2)
Height:
33.6m; 8 Levels above Ground, 5 Levels below Ground
Program:
Exhibition/Auction 4,000m2, Offices 3,400m2, Restaurants 2050m2,
Café/Bookstore 150m2, Hotel (120 Rooms) 12,680m2, Club Tower
2,000m2, Art Storage and Restoration Spaces 2,700m2, Parking
6,750m2