In China, the Jinxing Miners’ Canteen is Renovated by Aurelien Chen
Just a couple of quick many years back, the Jinxing Miners’ Canteen was in a point out of disrepair: The ceiling experienced all but collapsed, the wood was rotting and the full matter essential much more than a fresh new coat of paint. Its restoration was the ideal challenge for French architect Aurelien Chen, who specializes in cultural and renovation projects.
Initially crafted in the 1970s, the canteen (and the adjacent workplaces designed by German architects in 1912) at the time served a community of coal miners. The new iteration by Chen is a vibrant cultural place, entire with a literary café, library, exhibition spaces, bar, restaurant and theatre.
Nevertheless the creating was in lousy issue, it experienced good bones: Its characteristic “Red Era” model served as the starting level for Chen’s redesign. The inside also featured standard factors of Western architecture in China, like a flower-shaped ceiling rose whose variety drove the layout of the principal hall. But the genuine pièces de resistance are the arched doorways and vaulted basement, which had been uncovered during the design phase.
The colors, products and home furnishings of the “Red Era” have been reinterpreted to modernize the interior. In the main hall, a flora-influenced installation takes centre stage less than the gabled picket roof. The multifunctional place can be applied as an details desk, exhibition room, relaxation area, phase or for roundtable discussion. The encompassing furnishings take right after the centrepiece’s natural sort, motivated by the present mild fixtures’ concentric circles with built-in bookshelves to decrease litter in the open up thought room.
Expertly marrying existing and new factors, the bar is divided from the key corridor by a black metallic mesh folding monitor. The building’s concrete walls, painted with slogans from the “Red Era” in Chinese figures, guidance the bar, which repurposes the canteen counter from the authentic setting up. The graphic black and white checker-patterned tile ground nods to the space’s original finishes, whilst vivid green counter stools and a partition wall made of pink and yellow perforated metallic panels add a pop of color.
On the other aspect of the partition, the restaurant strikes an fully various tone. Right here, rich hues of navy and brass impart a lavish sense, though the dimpled metallic ceiling bounces mild all around the room. To more emphasize the archways found out in the development period, Chen mimicked these forms in the restaurant’s booth alcoves, also made of black steel mesh.
Beneath, a reduce out in the checkered flooring, included with glass, enables people to peer down the primary staircase into the basement, visually linking the two levels. In this house, Chen chose the route of minimal intervention, embracing the historic vaulted structure to produce cozy examining nooks and exhibition spaces.
An arched Corten steel quantity on the façade now is made up of the new staircase, though blue metallic ornaments have been included to the other openings to unify the setting up with its historic neighbours. Initiated by the community government’s Sustainable Enhancement Method, the Jinxing Miners’ Canteen renovation kinds part of the City and Rural Setting up and Design and style Institute of CSCEC’s new master plan for the internet site. Presented just 1 12 months to design and comprehensive the job, Chen’s delicate — and efficient — redesign presents a window into the earlier, although generating a space that serves the community in the existing.
