Wuhan French-Chinese Art Centre

Wuhan French-Chinese Art Centre in Wuhan, China by standardarchitecture

The years of 2003-05 were the China-France Culture Years. One element of this expression of French art in China is the the Wuhan French-Chinese Art Centre in Wuhan, China, the most populous city in Central China, sitting at the confluence of the Yangtze and Han Rivers. The building's site in the city is perhaps the most important condition for standardarchitecture, who strove to create "an important public space for the city and a monument for both the past and the ongoing transformation of the city."

The architects approached the design conceptually as an urban container made from the Ancient and intuitive Chinese images of ink and water. They related this concept to the historical structures of the city and the history of the neighborhood, where numerous Chinese intellectuals lived. These sketches illustrate a gestural expression that is carried over rather literally into the building's wrapper, where it is the Art Centre's roof as well as walls.

Aside from the building's exterior, the most striking design component is the large (inaccessible) central space that the building seems to contain within its wings. Filled with water, what's also striking about this space is that it was done in response to site conditions, specifically the presence of a flood pipeline that constricted the buildable area of the site.

So not only have the architects responded to the historical conditions of the site but also its infrastructural present. Their response is a merging of these two conditions, via their own intellectual processes. The product appears to be as striking inside as outside, where the "ink and water" infuses virtually every part of the project.