Jinhua Architecture Park

Jinhua Architectural Park or Jinhua Architecture Park is park in Jinhua city (south of Shanghai), China that contains 17 specially designed pavilions by Chinese and international architects. The chief organizer and curator is Chinese designer and architect Ai Weiwei. The park lies on a slender stretch of land over 2 km along the Yiwu River and is a dedication to the memory of Ai's father, poet Ai Qing, both of whom were born in Jinhua.

The project began in 2002 with invitations sent to five Chinese and 11 international architects. The municipality began converting a formerly agricultural zone into a mixed-use urban development. At Jinhua Architectural Park the architects were allowed to play, with delightfully insouciant results. Till Schweizer has designed an angular wood-screened welcome center with distorted intersecting stairs that tease and beckon the visitor at once. Herzog and de Meuron have contributed a honeycomb labyrinth of a ‘reading space’ that is anything but bookish. And the young Chinese team of Wang Xingwei and Xu Tiantian have created a series of cheeky, Tony Smith-esque concrete toilets.

References

* [http://www.arcspace.com/architects/jinhua/jinhua.html Jinhua Architecture Park] , "arcspace" (April 17, 2007)