A cultural landscape below Lianhua Hill
From Lianhua Hill, central Shenzhen spreads out around an axis of civic and cultural buildings. The library, concert hall, Guanshanyue Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning bring reading, music and exhibitions into this part of Futian.
The buildings have different purposes, and their relationship is also spatial. A cultural center can include the ground between institutions as well as the rooms inside them. Here, several kinds of public activity occupy neighboring parts of the city.
Reading and music in one design
Architect Arata Isozaki designed Shenzhen Cultural Center as a complex comprising the library and concert hall. The paired institutions give one architectural project two distinct programs: books and research on one side, live performance on the other.
Nearby, the Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning was designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au. Its faceted form adds another architectural language to the cluster. The different buildings give the area a variety of shapes as well as different ways of spending time.
A book city with a green roof
Shenzhen Book City's central store adds another kind of reading space. Designed by Kisho Kurokawa, it incorporates a planted roof and an elevated connection toward Lianhua Hill. Its design brings books, walking and greenery into the same urban setting.
These places give the center several rhythms: a performance begins at an appointed time, an exhibition arranges a sequence of rooms, and reading can hold someone in one place. Their neighboring buildings make room for those different uses within a contemporary city landscape.
