Hong Kong – The Chengdu City Music Hall designed by Andrew Bromberg (RIBA, Assoc. AIA), a Global Design Principal at Aedas, received a Merit Award for Urban Design at 2019 AIA International Region Design Awards.
Located at the central precinct of Chengdu, China, the Chengdu City Music Hall intends to gather world-class music culture and art exhibition facilities and resources to put the city on the map as one of the leading cultural capitals in the world. The design balances cultural components within a dense urban environment disconnected from its traditional connection to nature. The traditional Chinese landscape paintings are evolved from the surrounding Sichuan landscapes. The use of positive and negative spaces in this art form portrays an interesting balance between the physical and the ephemeral. These relationships were explored in how to balance the ‘imagined’ creations of the performance venues and school of arts with the ‘tangibles’ of the buildings.
The physical line between tangible and ephemeral was celebrated as a stepped public series of connected terraces. Beneath these terraces are the varying volumes of venues. Above these terraces are topographic bamboo gardens which provide an impression of the surrounding mountains. These accessible terraces step from the tall dense urban fabric towards the west and down to the more human scale pedestrian district to the east. The eastern edge is defined by an informal plaza which connects the project to the river and the arts district through the pedestrian ‘Music Avenue’.
Along the Northeast, an informal pedestrian connection flows from Music road carving and transitioning the mass down like a flowing river into the site creating a valley. Interconnected paths meander through thick bamboo forests, inducing breezes to create comfortable temperatures. The strong emphasis on the bamboo rooftops can be perceived as floating mountains above the city. Users can escape the busy streets of Chengdu and find sanctuary, re-acquaint with nature, and view the city from an absolutely unique experience. The Project Design is a competition entry.
