Poetic landscapes
Identity|January 2021
Aurelien Chen’s solitary pavilion recreates an ethereal and abstracted ‘painting’ of a traditional Chinese landscape
AIDAN IMANOVA
Poetic landscapes

Set against the backdrop of Rizhao, a coastal city in the southeastern Chinese province of Shandong, an ethereal installation emerges like a mirage from the roadside, marking the southern entrance to Zhulong Shan – the Dragon Mountain Natural Site. Depicting a typical Chinese landscape, or ‘shan shui’, the Dragon Mountain Pavilion evokes an image of mountains, forest, clouds and water.

Commissioned by Rizhao Fada Jituan, the company in charge of the tourism development of the natural scenic location, the permanent pavilion is the counterpart to the other pavilion that marks the southern entrance to the site; both have been designed by architect Aurelien Chen. The southern gate and tourist centre integrated into the surrounding landscape of the site uses traditional local materials such as stone, wood and bamboo.

“My goal was to create a dialogue between these two projects,” Chen explains. “They are opposites and yet they complete each other, just like the unity of opposites of Yin and Yang. In these two projects, mass is an answer to lightness, while stones are cemented together and poles are separated from one another. The general shape – a mountain – is identical for both projects.”

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