Oriental Art Centre Shanghai, Building, Images, Project, News, Design, Property

Shanghai Oriental Art Centre Building, China

Architecture in eastern China – design by Paul Andreu

25 Oct 2007

Oriental Art Centre Shanghai

Oriental Art Centre – Concert Hall & Performance Spaces

Shanghai
2000-04
Design: Paul Andreu Architects

Oriental Art Centre Shanghai – images + information from Paul Andreu Architects Oct 2007:

What is it?
During the day, at the end of Century Avenue, opposite Town Hall, it is a building made of curves out of a pearl gray, shiny material. It resembles no other building in the city. Nothing, no sign, no writing indicates its function, which is not otherwise immediately apparent.

What is it? It is some sort of enormous sculpture set amidst trees in the middle of the roads. Highlighted by reflections and shadows, its shape changes as you move around it. It soars up from the ground and opens out to the sky above. Opposite Town Hall, is an entrance with a big flight of steps leading up to it. From here, at the bottom, the building front becomes transparent and you can see inside another flight of steps and colorful high walls.

Something precious and mysterious must be happening inside, something at once solemn and joyous, something set here in the middle of the city like familiar object, an object that is here for the sole beauty of the city and the pleasure of its inhabitants. At night, the building becomes bright and transparent as if by magic. It shines like a light in the darkness.

One can see all the people entering the building, moving about, climbing the stairs, spreading out in all directions around three interior volumes whose contrasting colors fade in the color of the ceiling as they rise. There is a sense of gaiety and brightness in the movements of the people, the colors and the lights.

What is it? A place made for this calm, happy crowd. A place that the light opens up, and that you progressively enter, gradually approaching something important and simple, something that you love. It is, of course, a place of art, a place for exhibitions and performances. The three interior volumes that rise out of the base in which they are rooted, becoming lighter in color as they reach the ceiling, house three auditoriums. They house and protect them as one might protect a place that is precious and fragile. The common space around them, composed as a variation on the twin theme of transparency and curves, comprises an entrance lobby, lounges, the circulation space and exhibition areas. Functionally and visually, this space links the auditoriums to the city, visible from everywhere, and to the surrounding landscape, the trees and the sky above.

What is a performance space? It is the site of an encounter, meticulously prepared yet new and unique each time, a place where artists, public and artworks meet. Everything in the building is designed to make this encounter possible, easy and happy. Seen from this perspective, anything that might have seemed odd in this sculpture set amidst trees in the city centre becomes perfectly legible, crystal clear.

Shanghai Oriental Art Centre : main page

Oriental Art Centre Shanghai – Building Information

Location: Century Avenue, Shanghaï
Total surface area: 39,694 sqm
Auditorium capacities:
Philarmonic Orchestra Hall: 1,979 seats
Lyric Theatre: 1,054 seats
Chamber Music Hall: 330 seats