Project
Fuzhou Teahouse
Category
Best Implemented Interior Design Project Using Works of Art
About the project
Conceived as an urban artefact and drawing from the historical roots of the city of Fuzhou, the Relic Shelter internalizes a piece of distinct heritage at a time when rapid new development has eroded traditional culture and identity. The client’s brief posed the unique challenge of creating an enclosure for a Chinese artefact – the wooden structure of a high-ranking Qing dynasty official’s residence, replete with ornamental carvings and intricate joinery. Relocated from a Jiangnan city to its new home in Fuzhou, the Hui-style structure is enshrined as the inhabitable centerpiece of a new teahouse. Envisioned as a house atop a rock, the teahouse is elevated above a rammed concrete base, while its sweeping copper roof echoes the roofline of the enclosed architectural relic. Its core material, rammed concrete, is a modern homage to the traditional earthen dwellings of the region, emphasizing a raw monumentality.
Location
Gulou District, #95 Longting Road, Fuzhou, China
Project implementation year
2021
Project website
http://www.neriandhu.com/en/works/the-relic-shelter-fuzhou-tea-house
Additional information
The Architecture Record, US, June 2021, P90-94
Elle Decor italia, June 2021 https://www.elledecor.com/it/best-of/a36890411/tea-house-neri-and-hu-fuzhou-china/
Frame, Netherlands, June 2021 https://www.frameweb.com/article/neri-hu-makes-a-priceless-chinese-artefact-inhabitable
Domus, Italy, July 2021 https://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/gallery/2021/07/01/relic-shelter-una-casa-da-t-tra-i-grattacieli-a-fuzhou.html
Applicant and authors of the project
Neri&Hu Design and Research Office.
Founded in 2004 by Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu, Neri&Hu is an inter-disciplinary architectural design practice based in Shanghai. The practice’s burgeoning global portfolio includes commissions from master planning and architecture, to interior design, installation, furniture, product, branding and graphic works. The diversity of the team reinforces a core practice vision: to respond to a global worldview incorporating overlapping design disciplines for a new paradigm in architecture.
Other participants
Customer: Yango Group Fujian
FF&E design: Design Republic
LDI: Fujian Boyork Architectural Design Co., Ltd.
Lighting (Arch+ID): Shenzhen MATT Lighting Design & Consulting CO., LTD.
General Contractor: Mingzhu Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd.