Dezeen Magazine

Red-Wall Teahouse by CutscapeArchitecture flanks Beijing's Forbidden City

Beijing's Forbidden City is the backdrop for this tea house created by Chinese studio CutscapeArchitecture in place of two dilapidated warehouses (+ slideshow).

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

The old industrial sheds marked the start of an opening in the monumental red wall, which lines the perimeter of the 15th century palace grounds. This presented CutscapeArchitecture with an opportunity to create a teahouse with direct access to the imperial garden.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

Entitled Red-Wall Teahouse, the property now forms part of the People's Cultural Palace – an ancestral memorial temple – and offers a series of intimate tea rooms surrounded by narrow courtyards and passageways.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

The original roofline was dropped in favour of a series of angular canopies that respect the height of the palace wall whilst resonating with the buildings of the surrounding hutong.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Courtyard

"As an immediate design reaction, the roof of the first warehouse was tipped down to reveal the body of the palace wall on the hutong side," said architects Hong Zhang and Hetian Zhang.

"Then a cluster of freestanding steel-frame tea rooms were inserted into the middle of the 'unroofed garden', introducing courtyards in between the old and the new structures."

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Middle courtyard

Seven main rooms are contained within the complex. They feature different interior finishes – including bamboo, white marble, copper and acrylic tubes – intended to give each space its own character.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Cloud tea room

Some of the tea rooms can be accessed through openings in an original brick wall that divides the complex. The roof overhead is made up of steel and glass triangles.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Bamboo tea room

"The experience of rambling inside the teahouse becomes effectively walking across a village as if the overall size of the space is enlarged," said the architects.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Reception

As well as hosting tea ceremonies, the space also functions as a venue for events, exhibitions, meetings and other social occasions.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

Photography is by Yi Wang, Su Chen and Hetian Zhang.

Here's a project description from CutscapeArchitecture:


The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse

The Red-Wall Teahouse is situated inside the People's Cultural Palace which used to be the Ancestral Temple – a royal memorial temple for ancestors south-east to the Forbidden City. The palace wall on the east side of the temple wrapped around the Forbidden City as the second ring wall in which Tian'an Men functioned as the main gate. The wall had long been a symbol of social class division in old China, now nothing but a spatial threshold separating the imperial garden from the Hutong houses to the east. During modern authority transitions, undocumented damage took down northern half of the wall.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

The renovation project took place right at the breakage of the wall. Two shabby warehouses were left on site unattended, one attached to the red imperial wall and the other one set around three meters away north to the first one. As an immediate design reaction, the roof of the first warehouse was tipped down to reveal the body of the palace wall on the Hutong side. Then a cluster of freestanding steel-frame tearooms were inserted into the middle of the 'unroofed garden' introducing courtyards in between the old and the new structures.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

The exterior of the north teahouse which had been kept in better shape was insulated with new cover material. Its interior was opened up to match modern program needs. It is, then, through such interplay of old and new, volume and void, tradition and modern, solemnity and absurdness that unprecedented readings on local environment start to emerge.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

The teahouse consists of seven unique rooms snapping to each other exhibiting a form of cell division. Visitors must enter those rooms through existing doorways and window openings in the brick wall. New structures grow back in like bio-cells metabolising on urban scale.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

At the threshold where the sublime royal garden meets the austere Hutong daily lives, architectural gesture is unstable, ever-changing always on a status of readjusting and adapting. Tea ceremony is only the basic type of activity. Occasional social events, such as art exhibition, charity auction, festival ceremonies etc. will be able to bring local residents closer to the traditional built environment while inject modern values to the dysfunctional ancient temple.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

As major facade material, brushed stainless steel sheets and glass panel are placed in different angles to the red palace wall reflecting its raw conditions. When one enters the courtyard, one sees the over height of the solid brick palace wall reflected on the teahouse exterior on human scale as if many pieces of the palace wall standing on freewill. Modern materials do not seek to establish autonomy but to engage cultural heritage with respect.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

Interior of the tearooms is finished differently with bamboo sheets, white marble, copper and acrylic tubes. Each room adapts a unique character dissolving architecture into smaller pieces. The experience of rambling inside the teahouse becomes effectively walking across a village as if the overall size of the space is enlarged.

The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture

Location: the Ancestral Temple, the Forbidden City, Beijing, China
Floor Area: 280m2
Architect: Hong Zhang, Hetian Zhang
Design Team: Cheng Zhang, Hongbin Pan, Cheng Lian, Ziyue Liu, Penghao An, Jihua Sun, Jie Jing, Xiaowei Han
Suppliers: Dasso, Huili, HLLH

The-Forbidden-City-Red-Wall-Teahouse-by-Cutscape-Architecture_dezeen_24
Aerial location
The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Site plan - click for larger image
The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Floor plan - click for larger image
The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Long section - click for larger image
The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
Cross section - click for larger image
The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
East elevation - click for larger image
The Forbidden City Red-Wall Teahouse by Cutscape Architecture
West elevation - click for larger image