When the Phoenix Valley Mountaintop Art Museum appeared in the twenty-four solar terms countdown to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, its designer Li Daode was still a little surprised. He knew that more than 70 people from Zhang Yimou's shooting team had been shooting here for a whole day, but he didn't know what form his work would eventually appear, until he saw the art museum he designed from the live broadcast of the opening ceremony.
In the clips of the two solar terms of "Gu Yu" and "Mangzhong", the camera looks down from a high altitude at the summit art museum located above the peaks of the Yanshan Mountains, the model stands at the entrance of the roof boardwalk, and at night, the family is reunited in the art museum - although each picture is only a few seconds, it is a scene that can be recognized by people familiar with the building at a glance.
In 2014, Li Daode, as the invited architect of the first season of Oriental Satellite TV's "Dream Transformation Home", transformed a traditional dilapidated house into a volunteer home in Niubeishan deep in the mountains of Sichuan. After that episode, the young architect and his work got a lot of exposure. Many people visit the Niubeishan Volunteer Home, where couples hang cards full of wishes and concentric locks. Like many other "net red buildings", the influence of Niubeishan Volunteer Home has transcended the professional construction field and become a punch card destination for many people.
The popularity of the Niubeishan Volunteer Home has brought Li Daode the project opportunity of the Phoenix Valley Peak Art Museum. Both projects bear Lee's distinctive personal imprint – the logic of architecture is generated using digital design methods, the iconic curved tile roof blends in with the mountains, and the building seems to breathe in the same rhythm as nature, forming an emotional resonance. The curves of the building, which are integrated with the mountain color, always look particularly good in the shot.
In the era dominated by traffic and images, architecture, as part of visual symbols, is widely shared and disseminated on the Internet, and its fission ability will exceed the original intention of the architect. For this trend of "internet celebrity", Li Daode remains vigilant, "the rich content of the building is not something that a beautiful photo can express." ”
The trend of "spiritual architecture" is rising
A wave of "spiritual architecture" driven by Aranya is rising in the cultural tourism real estate industry. On the Gold Coast of Changli County, Qinhuangdao, Aranya invited domestic architects to build churches, libraries, art galleries, art centers and other buildings, which have become containers for cultural and artistic activities and crowd gatherings, and also carry the values and community spirit that developers want to create.
The success of a real estate project sometimes requires only the chance of a photo. When the Lonely Library exploded in the circle of friends in 2015, Aranya became overcrowded overnight, and the coastal resort town became a leader in China's real estate industry.
Subsequently, Anaya expanded its model to Jinshanling and Sanya, one in a secluded valley and the other between mountains and seas, all trying to replicate the success of Qinhuangdao and shape the spiritual corners that the city people yearn for. Today, Aranya Jinshanling has ten public buildings such as the auditorium, concert hall, theater, art museum, and art center, where architects have been given a stage to show their creativity.
The trend of high-end cultural tourism real estate to create "spiritual buildings", Li Daode saw in his eyes, "This is not only the market demand, but also related to the way everyone obtains information in this era." "In the past, buildings were seen through professional magazines or television, but today, with the rise of social media, punching in and taking photos has become a trend, and the communication channels of a building have become diverse, and the cultural tourism real estate industry will naturally seize this trend."
Although many of Li Daode's architectural works can be called "internet celebrities", he has always rejected this title. In his view, a building labeled "internet celebrity" means that it spreads rapidly within a specific time frame. Buildings are framed in one shot after another, and through the modification of shooting angles and beauty tools, sometimes only one angle and one color can be quickly disseminated.
The public's attention and pursuit of individual architecture is a double-edged sword for architects. "On the one hand, the public's interest in architectural art will make the architect and his works more quickly seen; on the other hand, it may also cause the architect or party A to ignore the life cycle of the building and pay more attention to how the building can quickly become popular at a stage."
Last year, when he was a judge of the Chinese Design Star, a young designer came up with his work to participate in the competition, and he first elaborated on the design concept, but how many media the work had been reported by the media, how many clicks on the Little Red Book, and how many big V had punched the clock. Li Daode told him on the spot that if he used "net red" as a measure in the early stage of design, the original intention of the design was wrong.
In such an environment, whether he is taking on projects or doing designs, he has become more cautious, hoping that his architectural works will stand the test of time and have more lasting vitality.
Both digital and oriental
dEEP Architects' presentation material has this sentence: "Explore the unique presentation of digital architecture in the local context of China." Li Daode's architectural works are both futuristic and Classical Chinese aesthetics, and it is this that has attracted the developers of Tianzhao Phoenix Valley and also impressed Zhang Yimou.
Tianzhao Phoenix Valley, in the Middle of the Yanshan Valley on the border between Beijing and Chengde, originally wanted to build an art museum, but its appeal was to combine oriental aesthetics and modern architectural styles. The developers hope that this "spiritual building" can carry the thick history and humanities of Jinshanling and echo with the Jinshanling Great Wall. At first, they wanted to hire Japanese architect Kengo Kuma to design it, but after seeing the design of the Oxback Mountain Volunteer House, they chose Lee Daode.
When surveying the site, Li Daode decided to design according to the undulating terrain of the mountain, and followed the trend, using the building to echo the mountains. The entire building covers an area of 1500 square meters, boldly using the roof as the entrance, running through the spiral staircase of the entire building, taking visitors from top to bottom, from outdoor to indoor, like playing in a classical garden, through walking to feel the rich changes in spatial scale and landscape.
Li Daode studied Chinese painting from an early age, majored in architectural design in the Design Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and then obtained a master's degree in architecture from the Architectural Union School of Architecture (AA College) in London. He worked for three years at Pritzker Prize winner Norman Foster's London office and found that in the face of large-scale construction projects, there was a need to compromise and balance all aspects, and there was little opportunity to put his ideas intact. In the end, he chose to return to China and open his own architectural design office.
Most of the projects he has taken over are cultural buildings, cafes, art galleries, art galleries and public spaces for various cultural tourism projects. In the process of tempering again and again, he gradually formed a way of "presenting oriental poetry with digital techniques", looking for the local context of China in the internationally popular digital architecture, which he called "digital oriental".
Public attention and architectural intentions
After creating the Niubeishan Volunteer Home in "Dream of Transforming a Home", Li Daode received invitations from cCTV, local satellite TV and other transformation reality shows, but he declined. Architects who show themselves to the public on reality shows inevitably take as a starting point how the work can be better presented visually, which Li Daode hopes to avoid.
Recalling that he participated in "Dream Of Transforming Home", he initially resisted, and later learned that this project was a public welfare, so he decided to participate in it. Niubeishan Volunteer Home satisfies Li Daode's complex of building a house for volunteers in the deep mountains, and he has always wanted to use the vastness of nature to set off the life of architecture.
The local environment is more difficult than imagined, the uncultivated mountains are completely barbaric, in this environment, he uses digital methods to renovate old houses, together with the construction team of local villagers, while experimenting and making, using local bamboo to make a special-shaped structure, transforming a futuristic new building, in three months to achieve a new look of the old house.
After the program was broadcast, the Volunteer House received countless curious visitors and backpackers, many of whom knew through the building that there was a group of young people here who were selflessly engaged in public welfare undertakings in the mountains. The public saw the power of architecture, and also paid attention to rural construction and traditional architecture, which realized Li Daode's original intention.