Creating a cultural destination with mise-en-scène
Nowadays, everyone watches movies online, how could physical cinemas stay relevant and attractive for the cinephiles?
That was the design challenge for our first cinema project for MOViE MOViE at the Taikoo Li Qiantan, a mixed-use development recently completed in Shanghai. We started off asking what is the cinema experience? It is a moment of escape, an internal journey, or an expedition to another world. To complement these adventures, we set out to create a physical platform recalling memories of encountering natural wonders and travelling off the beaten path.
Zhuji, China is one of the ancient capitals of Yue Kingdom and the native place of Xishi. It covers an area of 2,311 square kilometers with a population of 1.0559 million, and has 27 townships, 468 villages, 69 urban communities under its jurisdiction. Located in the south wing of the Yangtze Delta, only 200 km away from Shanghai, 90 km from Hangzhou, and 60 km from Xiaoshan International Airport, Zhuji enjoys an obvious regional advantage. Furthermore, the city is a shining example of industry, trade, community, and environmental protection.
In this post pandemic era, operation of cinemas and future development of film industry has become a hot topic in current society. After a long period of business close-down and limiting audience capacity due to the pandemic, a problem gradually appeared in front of the public – cinema owners should have done a deeper analysis on how to develop their cinema’s commercial value and expand its features in order to adapt to the rapidly changing society.
Last year, we created another FAB Cinema in Xi’an and brought the scenes behind the big screen into the public space. This time in Taiyuan IF Center, FAB Cinema collaborated with Zhongshuge to create an innovational cinema experience, and we are invited to design this cross-brand project.
Antonio Virga has delivered, in the historic center of Cahors, the “Grand Palais”, a 7-theater cinema with a capacity of 1,051 spectators that is part of a master redevelopment plan for the Place Bessières, now dedicated to pedestrians.
Located on the north side of the historic center of the town of Cahors and a few steps away from the banks of the Lot River, this cinema stands on a former site dedicated to the army (today renamed Place Bessières). The project offered the opportunity to recreate and reinterpret the symmetry of the preexisting army barracks by occupying the area of the east wing of this complex, destroyed by fire in 1943. Previously serving as a parking lot, the Place Bessières has been transformed into a broad and welcoming urban space dedicated to pedestrians and protected by an existing canopy of trees.
The story behind the design of MOVIELAND is a tribute to the older days of the cinema world. The complex includes 11 movie theaters, among them some rich VIP halls. We chose strong elements and humanity values for the design, and special nostalgic look, which usually aren’t found in large commercial movie theaters. The whole complex gives the feeling of Deja Vu to the dazzling world of 1920’s Hollywood, with the elegance and luxury of the magnificent theaters in Europe of the same period, the golden age of world cinema.
Director Ang Lee talks about movies in this way, “I think we directors are just like conductors. We sense something and then convey to the public through ourselves, stimulating their emotions, imagination, and thinking. This is what we say about making a film. ” This collaboration with FAB Cinema made me suddenly realize that as a designer, I also seemed to be a space director. I felt the power of life acting on me and cut out beautiful freeze-frames and close-ups, fabricating unreal dreams, mobilizing and stimulating the audiences’ emotions and imagination, and then conveying them through the carrier, space.
In the Summer of 2008 UAU collective (before named SAQ) was approached by Design Hotels to aid in the creation of a proposal for an 80,000 sq. m. site comprised of 4 existing buildings and the addition of a 5th unifying building that could run throughout the complex composed of retail, hotel, cinema and office space. The project could not be a cut and paste of existing programmatic standards but instead had to integrate new concepts for retail, hotel and office space. This called for a heavily integrated team of experts for hotel (Design hotels), retail (Axel Weber and Partners), and architecture (UAU collectiv). UAU collectiv (SAQ) was responsible for the overall masterplan, the architecture as the realization of the interior of the common spaces. The realization on site is carried out by the Munich architectural firm Hild und K, which is specialised in construction work on existing buildings. Hild und K have combined the innovative design by UAU collective (SAQ) with the given conditions of the listed existing buildings and thereby made it feasible.
The architect, Henri Chauvet, designed a unique building in 1986 to fit the cinema “Le Scarron” and the theatre “Les Sources”. Our analysis of the current building showed that the public and the pedestrians don’t notice these facilities mainly due to the architecture.
Seven-theater cinema with cultural space, community center with concert space and dance studios, 342 residential units, a shared garden,bespoke artwork, and retail space Three residential buildings offering exceptional views of the great Parisian landscape anchor three corners of a mixed-use block. At the heart of the project is a cultural center for the new ZAC Clichy-Batignolles district in Paris’ 17th arrondissement: a seven-theatre cinema and a community center. These public volumes, anchored to the ground, give way to the public realm and are crowned with hanging gardens. Three residential blocks emerge from this base, climbing up to 50 meters. This simple distribution of masses effectively resolves the inscription of a complex program on a high-density site. Thickened facades permit a band of generous loggias around the residential blocks. Architectural precast concrete on the buildings’ facades situate the project within the material tradition of Parisian stone and concrete and gives each of the three buildings a singular expression from the ground to the sky: the twisted form with its torqued effect (sand colored), the chiseled bar with continuous balconies (in white) and the pleated tower with its progressive fold (in white).
email
Facebook
Twitter
RSS Feed
