Gold Architecture, Building and Structure Design · 2021
Open Village Cinema
by Shimu Wang
- A' Design Award 2021 Gold Winner in Architecture, Building and Structure Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Jia Zhang-ke Art Center
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 28,899
- Verification code F0BA7C384E · Verify this award
About Open Village Cinema
Open Village is a cinema located in a rural village in Fenyang, Shanxi, China. The building was converted from a former cement plant. The original structure is preserved and enclosed within a new brick facade, whose pierced patterns act as a shading device. A glazed staircase of colored glass rises through the outer shell. Adjacent cement silos were refurbished into a bookstore. The venue also contains an auditorium and a long exhibition wall. Film and literature festivals are held there for local residents and visitors.
Open Village Cinema by Shimu Wang exemplifies a distinguished approach to architectural transformation that positions industrial heritage within the continuum of contemporary cultural production, demonstrating how careful intervention can honor material memory while introducing bold formal gestures that announce renewed programmatic purpose. The work appears to engage with established traditions of adaptive reuse that emerged prominently in late twentieth-century architectural practice, wherein obsolete industrial structures were recognized not merely as functional shells but as repositories of collective memory and aesthetic character worthy of preservation and reinterpretation. The designer seems to have approached the existing brick volume with evident respect for its tectonic integrity, maintaining the weathered patina and dimensional solidity that speak to the structure's industrial origins while introducing angular apertures that pierce the facade with crystalline precision, creating a productive dialogue between historic mass and contemporary void. The chromatic strategy demonstrates sophisticated understanding of material authenticity, allowing the warm earth tones of clay brick to establish the dominant palette while metallic insertions and illuminated elements provide calculated moments of contrast that read as contemporary annotations upon a historic palimpsest. Particularly noteworthy is the cylindrical element at right, whose translucent colored cladding transforms what might have been an industrial remnant into a luminous beacon suggesting both lighthouse and lantern, its chromatic warmth offering invitation while its scale provides vertical counterpoint to the horizontal mass of the main volume. The entrance sequence, articulated through dramatically faceted metallic forms, suggests the designer's engagement with threshold as both functional transition and symbolic passage, the angular geometry perhaps evoking cinematic concepts of frame, cut, and montage appropriate to the building's programmatic identity. The twilight capture reveals how the architecture performs differently across diurnal cycles, the blue hour lending atmospheric depth while artificial illumination establishes the building as activated presence within its urban context. What personal resonances might viewers discover when encountering architecture that so eloquently bridges industrial past and cultural present?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The Art house 'Open Village' is named after the movie 'Rome, Open City', its Chinese name, the 'Seed theatre', is emblematic of prosperity and growth.
The edifice spent its past life as a rural cement plant, the original structure is now preserved and encased within a new facade, which brick patterns and glazed staircase are carefully designed. The cement silos next to the main building are refurbished into a bookstore.
It enriches the cultural and art scene of village. - Dimensions & Packaging
- Width 16000mm x Depth 38700mm x Height 14700mm
- Tags
- Open Village, Seed, Cinema, Colorful glass, Glazed staircase, Red brick, Polygonal window, 86358 Short Film Festival, Lvliang Literature Festival, Jia Zhang-ke Art Center
- Production Technology
- To avoid the damages of the glass pattern after long-time exposed to the rain, light and touch, we chose to attach the pattern between two slices of glass instead of simply pasting film to the inside face of glass. Pierced brick walls ripple across the elevation to act as ‘brise soleil’ shading device to help hiding the functional opens in different dimensions.
- Design Challenge
- The glass staircases are the hardest part of the whole construction process. Limited to the budget, the inner framework, the shape of the whole staircases and even the shape of every glass piece all followed the manually completed model to be achieved. Meanwhile, every corner and edge of the glass pattern were carefully designed, matched and jointed which made the final staircase outlook unified.
- Project Duration
- The project started in March 2017 and finished in September 2019, which is located in Industrial Park of Creative Culture, Jiajiazhuang, Fenyang, Shanxi, China.
- Operation Flow
- Since Open Village opened to the public, it brought high quality cultural resources to the rural village where it located in. Annually organized 86358 short film festival, Lvliang literature festival and other common cultural activities attract artists and young people to this place. The colourful glass staircases also became an unique postcard of this village.
- Research
- Cultural resources have been funnelled into the urbanized areas instead of the rural areas where population and economic power is lower. The preservation of regional culture in rural villages is nearly impossible due to the scarcity of cultural venues. A self-sustaining operation model, and centralized provision of resources and programs are what it takes to develop a robust cultural venue.
‘Open Village’ encapsulates both of these qualities. This extra-ordinary cinema houses not only an auditorium, but also a bookstore and an extensive exhibition wall. It can accommodate both outdoor and indoor activities. The centralized cultural program ensures the efficient provision of resources to recipients, hence attracting a wider audience for the cultural experience. Apart from daily operation, extra revenue is generated from the letting the venue to event organizers. This extra stream of income will sustain the project in the long run. - Inspiration
- 'Open Village', as suggested by its name, is an open window on literature and film art to enlighten the sleepy farming village where it situated in.
Pierced brick walls, polygonal glazings and the glazed staircase make walkways weaving through the outer shell occasionally, like sprouts growing through the cracks of a block of clay. When these elements come into play, the stone cold building is turned into an animated dynamic hub,which shows the plant to be rich of vitality and openness. - Image Credits
- Image #1: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Open Village, 2019
Image #2: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Open Village, 2019
Image #3: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Open Village, 2019
Image #4: Photographer Shimu Wang, Open Village, 2019
Image #5: Photographer Weiqi Jin, Open Village, 2019
Video Credits: Photographers and Editors YANG Studio, Open Village, 2019