On December 29th, the opening ceremony of the "Centennial Zhai Accord Retrospective Exhibition" was held in the living room of Wuhan Design Capital, Zhai Accord, where people from all walks of life gathered together to witness the architectural beauty, rebirth and reconstruction of Zhai Accord.
Built in 1921 as "Zhai Jacob's Fitness Center", Zhai Ya Ge was built to commemorate the contributions of Zhai Jacob, the first president of Wenhua University, and is the earliest two-storey indoor gymnasium building in China, designed by American missionary designer Bai Jiamin. The combination of Chinese and Western architectural styles and construction techniques shows the beauty of architecture to the world.
In 2013, Zhai YaGe made his debut as a representative of Tan Hualin's historical buildings, which received widespread attention from all walks of life. In 2014, the Wuhan Engineering Design Industry Alliance organized experts from all walks of life to plan the restoration and reuse plan of Zhai Accord. In 2016, the revitalized Zhai Accord began to regain its life as the living room of Wuhan's design capital.
At the event site, the Wuhan Design Capital Independent Designers Alliance and the Fashion Art College of Hubei Academy of Fine Arts jointly starred in the fashion show to kick off the exhibition. Fashionable clothing, cutting-edge design, upright posture and the roof of the century-old Zhai Accord intertwine the wonderful moments of cross-border interaction between time and space, history and humanities.
The exhibition "Centennial Zhai Accord Retrospective Exhibition" is divided into two parts: Zhai Accord's "Past Life" and "Rebirth". Among them, the "Past Life" section mainly exhibits the relevant contents of Zhai Argyle's design, construction, maintenance and reuse projects from 1921 to 2016; the "Rebirth" section will focus on important activities and exhibitions such as the design city bidding, cultural and artistic exchanges held since zhai Argyle was renovated on November 11, 2016 as the living room of Wuhan Design Capital.
Among them, the exhibits with archival value will be used as permanent exhibits of the Zhai Ya Ge Museum. The content of the exhibition will be met with readers in the form of a published album later.
The reporter saw at the scene that the exhibition presented the century-old journey of Zhai Yage from design, construction and use to maintenance and reuse in the form of art archives, reproduced the real working scene of Zhai Yage's maintenance and reuse project, and demonstrated the function and value of its design industry exchange, design capital brand release, urban culture communication and exchange platform.
"Urban spatial renewal, humanistic memory regeneration, and social activity reshaping are the new missions of the Wuhan Design Capital Promotion Center." Jin Zhihong, secretary general of the Wuhan Engineering Design Industry Alliance in China, said that the next step will be to build Zhai Accord into a "showroom" and "cloud platform" for the "new life of the old city", helping creative design enterprises and independent designers to become the main force of "urban renewal".
(China Daily Hubei Reporter Station)