Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street is known as "the first commercial street in China". Nowadays, on the way from the pedestrian street to the Bund, it is difficult not to be tempted by a glass dome for those who want to catch a glimpse of Shanghai at night. As a landmark project of the "second façade" of the Bund urban renewal, the Bund Central Plaza is composed of four historical buildings, namely the Central Shopping Mall, Meilun Building, Overseas Chinese Building and Xinkang Building, and the wonderful light and shadow effect brought by the glass dome on the top of the building complex attracts a large number of citizens and tourists to stop and stay, and is also known as the "most beautiful dome on the Bund".
Through the combination of themed activities and normalized market activities, the Bund Central Plaza provides citizens and tourists with diversified functions and consumption experiences, enriches the functions and forms of Nanjing East Road-Bund Commercial Block, and gradually becomes a national cultural tourism check-in place, a trendy place for commercial markets, and a distribution center for public culture in Shanghai.
Three screens link to create light and shadow effects
Dome light and shadow harvest a large number of "likes"
The scattered distribution of 4 historical buildings makes the Bund Central Square form a unique cross-shaped inner street. How to enrich the spatial design language of the new and old building groups of the project, while creating a comfortable urban rest space, so that citizens can not only enjoy the relaxation of outdoor space, but also protect from the wind and rain, and give full play to the affinity of urban public space? The answer to the Bund's central plaza is to add a glass dome to the complex.
Ouyang Luyun, Commercial Director of Shanghai Bund Investment Group and General Manager of Shanghai Central Shopping Mall Investment Co., Ltd., introduced that the glass dome covers an area of nearly 4,000 square meters and the steel structure weighs about 500 tons, and the design is inspired by the famous Emanuel II arcade in Milan, Italy. Because the dome connects four asymmetrical historical buildings and new buildings with different heights and different intervals, it is very difficult to build, in order to meet the symmetry, nearly 2,000 pieces of glass of different sizes on the dome have been accurately calculated, independently cut and formed.
Under the sunlight, triangular glass casts light and shadows on the ground and the exterior walls of the four buildings, which migrate with the sunrise and sunset, as if interpreting the change of time. At night, through the 12,000 dazzling LED lamp beads installed in the glass dome, linking the walls of the old building and the cool naked-eye 3D screen, the central square of the Bund presents a three-dimensional space for multimedia display, through the integration of historical buildings and modern technology, providing light and shadow interpretation for citizens and tourists. The different atmosphere created by the crystal transparency during the day and the ambilight at night often leads people to raise their mobile phones to shoot and post them on social platforms to harvest a large number of "likes".
Christmas market
Relying on the "most beautiful dome on the Bund" and open space, the business management team of the Bund Central Plaza also created a series of market activities with distinctive themes. For example, the German Christmas market has become a popular check-in place in Shanghai during the Christmas period every year, and last year it successfully ranked first on the Douyin city list. On the occasion of the spring blossoms in 2023, the Spring Festival event was unveiled under the dome, and the market that combines novelty, atmosphere and social sense meets the needs of young consumers for scene experiential consumption.
Live a unique experience of sports on the Bund
Under the dome, the cross inner courtyard is "transformed" into an open square, and often combines the advantages of brand merchants in the project to hold trend, art, lifestyle and other activities, so that people can get more wonderful experiences in addition to consumption.
Since its opening in September 2017, Nike's Jordan brand national flagship store - "Jordan 139 Nandong Flagship Store" has attracted sneaker enthusiasts from all over the country, and the summer customer flow has reached about 4,000 people per day. The super popularity comes from the uniqueness of the store, the person in charge Tian Jianjun introduced, as the first store of Jordan's limited edition sneakers, each sneaker sale event will attract thousands of people to participate, of which more than 60% of sneaker fans are from surrounding provinces and cities.
Thanks to the spacious space and light of the inner courtyard of the Bund Central Plaza, the brand has also held various activities to give back to fans with the support of the mall. "In the first half of the year, we built a basketball court in the inner courtyard and held the 'Highlight the Siege' basketball challenge, which gave hundreds of fans a unique experience of playing basketball on the Bund. On September 1st, we also held an anniversary celebration in the inner courtyard. Tian Jianjun said.
Play basketball on the Bund
Located on the 4th floor of Meilun Building, Lincoln Jazz Shanghai Center is an artistic benchmark in the eyes of jazz fans in Shanghai and even the whole country, and a must-see art and culture hall to enjoy jazz in Shanghai. As the only branch center set up overseas by the Lincoln Jazz Center in the United States, the Lincoln Jazz Shanghai Center has resident performances of world-class jazz musicians all year round. When public welfare art events such as the Lincoln Jazz Life Festival are held, musicians will also walk out of the indoor stage and come to the large stage of the square under the dome to interact with more music fans, citizens and tourists in music up close.
Ouyang Luyun said that through cultural activities such as the Lincoln Jazz Life Festival, weekend street artist performances, and concerts at the Great World Performing Arts Plaza, citizens and artists can "meet unexpectedly" in the mall. "We hope to deliver high-quality cultural content to the masses and let citizens feel the charm of art at their doorsteps and squares."
Editor-in-chief: Tang Ye Source: Photo provided by interviewee
Source: Author: Wu Yue