Walking into a 4-storey imitation Ming and Qing Dynasty building in the central square of Yuyuan Mall, the eyes suddenly opened up: the open Bogu shelf stands on the sky, the ceramic utensils are displayed openly, and the staff invites customers to sit down to drink tea and chat; upstairs, the newly unveiled ceramic exhibition displays the works of many contemporary artists...
After a year, the long-established Huabao Building was upgraded and returned. Focusing on the theme of "tea", the re-unveiled Huabao Building is not only closer to young people in terms of design and display, but also equipped with multiple formats such as exhibitions, auctions, and live broadcasts, and integrates activities such as real-life art collection and ancient style script killing; and even changes the "rent collection" model of shopping malls to introduce the "manager" system of young fashion brands.
Huabao Building, a "time-honored brand" famous for its traditional arts and crafts, integrates the idea of "socialization" into all aspects of upgrading and transformation. In the eyes of industry insiders, this is a new exploration: "The core of cultural business is 'people-to-people communication', and it is also the key to the dislocation competition between offline space and online traffic." ”
Do not emphasize "tradition", let people feel the tradition
"It's not like an 'old brand' here, it's like an enlarged version of MUJI."
Liu Xin, a 24-year-old citizen, walked into Huabao Building by mistake, and his first feeling was "open and bright". In contrast to the exterior of the building with carved beams and paintings and palace lamps hanging high, the internal furnishings here are not as thick and heavy as Liu Xin thought, but have a sense of "transparency and lightness".
This feeling is carefully designed: huge floor-to-ceiling windows replace the closed windows of the past; the traditional "Bogu Shelf" for display has changed the intricate carving and curves, with simple straight lines intersecting to form a transparent display space, and even the mahogany color that was considered "noble" in the past has been replaced by the original wood color.
The updated Warburg Building is bright and transparent
Seemingly inadvertent details contain the humanistic memory of Huabao Building. At the entrance, Dai Dunbang created a map of Yuyuan City, titled "100 acres of Yuyuan Shangjia City, Millennium Huabao Collection Building", the designer hopes to imply huabao building "watching the original heart, self-iteration" feelings.
Shen Bin, the project leader of Huabao Building of Yuyuan Mall, said that before the upgrade, he had visited cultural and commercial places popular with young people such as Tingya Bookstore and MUJI, and the open space design was to "let young people have no burden": "Why can't traditional Chinese cultural venues adapt to the current environment like those cultural and commercial landmarks overseas?" In his view, reproducing the traditional form, process, product and other materializable elements is only a copy of fragments, and the core of the inheritance lies in the idea: "Classics are once innovative." Revival is not retro, not a return to the past, but living in the present. ”
In the eyes of Liu Xin and friends of the same age, today's Huabao Building is "very good to visit". The 1500 square meter negative first floor gathers more than 80 merchants, operating various miscellaneous items such as antiques, jade and jade, stone carving and wood carving, of which 80% are old shops that have been operating for 20 or 30 years. Here retains the ecology of the Old City God Temple Antique Market, and people can experience the fun of Taobao picking up leaks and bargaining.
On the first and second floors, with the theme of "tea", more than 25 domestic kilns have been introduced, including the century-old Liyong purple sand pot, the pastel porcelain "Cui Di Ware" by contemporary artist Cui Di, the "Jade Kiln" created by the traditional craft master Huang Guojun to restore traditional porcelain-making techniques, and the first store opened outside the place of origin by YilinTang, managed by Yu Yin, one of the youngest kiln owners in Jingdezhen. "Post-90s" consumer Shi Li said that she "does not understand tea", "but these unique utensils are used in daily life and can bring the joy of life." ”
Qinglan - 2021 (Shanghai) Chinese Contemporary Qinghua Academic Invitation Exhibition
Retail space was compressed, ceding to art exhibitions and social scenes. The first floor of Huabao Building is exhibiting artist Yang Ming's "Happy Lion" works, drawing on the image of the Happy Lion in the New Year painting to welcome the New Year. The third floor and the fourth floor are composed of a number of exhibition space, and at the "Qinglan - 2021 (Shanghai) China Contemporary Blue and White Academic Invitation Exhibition" being held, Leng Jun, who was sought after by netizens because of the hyperrealist oil paintings of "details to the hair" and the "sky-high price" that was repeatedly auctioned and sold, exhibited two porcelain prints with bamboo as the theme, showing the other side of its "hyper-realism" in addition to wild freehand.
"Our research found that Gen Z young people are in line with international standards and have 'natural self-confidence'." Shen Bin believes that practitioners should turn content into products through the understanding and creative transformation of traditional culture, strengthen the blood connection between traditional culture and young people through products, and make cultural self-confidence richer.
Not to talk about "culture", more cultural flavor
Passing the corner of the second floor of Huabao Building, a row of glass dolls of "Iron Painting Xuan" attracted the attention of reporters. At this time, Rong Xinyu, the manager of the Iron Painting Xuan, leaned out from behind the display shelf and invited the reporter to sit in and drink a cup of tea he had made. At the long tea table sat three first guests, who, although they did not know each other well, opened the conversation box around the cup in their hands.
"Calling 'boss' is too commercial; calling 'teacher' is not afraid to be." When Rong Xinyu introduced "Tiehuaxuan", he called it "Tangkou", which can be understood as a common name for "brand" in the past; and his introduction to himself was "manager", the usual title of the founder of the tide brand today.
One new and one old, so colliding here.
Old Yu Garden Mall
Huabao Building, formerly known as the Old City God Temple Crafts Mall, is one of the earliest professional shops for arts and crafts opened in Shanghai after the reform and opening up. In September 1994, Huabao Building was completed, and the shopping mall was moved from the main hall of the City God Temple, and arts and crafts, jewelry and antiques, calligraphy and painting works were the main projects.
Shen Bin introduced that when upgrading and transforming, everyone felt that there were many categories of arts and crafts, and it was necessary to choose a theme to focus on and deepen in order to adapt to the current environment and form IP. After several debates, this theme fell on "tea". "Tea runs through Chinese tradition and modernity in time, and can extend to oriental aesthetic life such as incense ware and flower utensils; it is full of pyrotechnics and contains a metaphysical attitude to life."
However, it is not easy to attract young people with "tea culture". On the Internet, "talking about 'tea culture'" has become a prominent sign of "greasy middle age" that is ridiculed by young people.
"Cultural business is most afraid of cultural virtualization." In contact with many churches, Shen Bin is not a person who has not encountered "quoting scriptures and in the clouds", and his requirement for the manager is to "explain the professional problems clearly": "The materials, processes, instruments, patterns and other elements of the item should be clearly stated, and the combination and application of the current life should be visualized." ”
"You walk into Starbucks and no one ever asks you if you know anything about coffee." The manager is not only the "treasurer", but also the cultural communicator. Rong Xinyu has always believed that when disseminating traditional culture, it is necessary to "continuously lower the threshold" internally. He calls himself "the gatekeeper of the tea world", as long as someone is willing to drink a cup of tea from him, he will "drag people in to play": "Don't like to drink tea, then drink milk tea?" Tea can also call out pink, purple different colors of "coffee pull flower is magical? Ancient Chinese tea plays can draw and write, and even draw landscape maps"...
Tea can also "paint"
Traditional culture needs to enter thousands of households, and it needs relatively affordable products to attract non-professional consumer groups other than "collectors" and "players". What lies between traditional handicrafts and ordinary consumers is the pricing fog of "non-standard products". Coupled with the rhetoric of "cultural empowerment", such products often make people feel that "the water is too deep".
Nowadays, Huabao Building uniformly controls the selection of products, the product fidelity and price is not higher than the place of origin, the after-sales service is unified and standardized; the manager of each hall explains its value composition from a professional perspective: "This is to establish the trust between people."
"Choose people before you choose them." In Shen Bin's view, if commodities are retail and luxury goods are services, cultural commerce is social: from "people and things exchanges" to "people-to-people exchanges".
Improper "landlord", maybe more rewarding
Walking through the Huabao Building, there may not be a salesman chasing and asking "what to buy", but there must be a manager who beckons "come in and sit down" and "drink a cup of tea".
This method is called "releasing water to raise fish" by Rong Xinyu: "Maybe someone has come to drink tea ten times without trading once, but the time I spend is equivalent to occupying the same length of time as the customer, which is a success in scene consumption." In his past experience, this approach has been tried and tested: once consumed, customers tend to be "extremely sticky."
Similar to the business model of "release" and "maintenance" of the manager, Huabao Building changed the model of the traditional shopping mall as the landlord's "rental counter" after this upgrade, and formulated another set of assessment and revenue standards while eliminating the introduction of tangkou rent.
With the entry of the church, the "traffic" effect has initially emerged. Old guests from various halls flocked to the church, and today's Huabao Building makes many people "bright". "Compared with the tangkou scattered in Shanghai and even all corners of the country in the past, it is now much more convenient to communicate in Huabao Building." Fang Ming, a citizen who likes purple sand pots and tea leaves, said that if he receives a new pot, he can accompany a set of cups and a tea party. In the future, each hall will also carry out high-frequency activities, and Huabao Building will launch a series of art and humanities courses in the form of salons, art sets, and competitions. In the view of some industry insiders, these efforts will help the brand effect of Huabao Building, and it is expected to become an important platform for the trade of arts and crafts and art exhibitions in the Yangtze River Delta region in the future.
Huabao Wenhui collects scenes of life in the Song Dynasty
"In addition to customer sharing and cross-border joint names, there are many new ways to play in the future." Not long ago, Rong Xinyu planned and directed a "Huabao Wenhui" in Huabao Lou: a maid in a skirt lingered on a lantern, and a musician tapped a chime and blew a phoenix, immersing himself in the life of a Song Dynasty literati and scholars. Shen Bin expects that in the future, young people can be invited to experience an ancient style script killing in Hanfu.
"The presiding officers of each hall are like 'special soldiers', and Huabao Lou gathers everyone together." In the eyes of many managers, how to integrate the tangkou with their own advantages and personalities is an exploration and challenge for Huabao Lou and the manager: "In any case, this is an innovation to promote business with literature. ”