Ma Yansong creates maze-like performance space for Chinese festival
MAD Architects founder Ma Yansong has unveiled The City of Time installation and events space on the beach in Aranya, northern China.
Created for the Aranya Theater Festival, which takes place on a beach near Qinhuangdao, the maze-like structure was designed to host a series of art installations and events during the festival.
Made from recylecd metal panels, the structure contains a series of various differently shaped rooms enclosed by two-metre-high walls. According to the studio, the walls structure will be dismantled after the end of the festival and reused for next year's event.
"The City of Time dissolves after 300 hours," said Yansong. "Revolving around an axis perpendicular to the sea, it offers a spiritual roost for creators."
Yansong designed the beach-side venue to host works and events created by 300 creatives during the festival.
He hopes that the "fanciful" temporary structure will encourage interaction between creatives from different disciplines.
"In real cities the need for functionality suffocates spiritual spaces," he said.
"Building a fanciful city by the sea allows the substance of theatre and art to breathe natural life into this space," he continued.
"Taking flight and transcending reality, it is a place dedicated to time, human behavior, and nature, inspiring contemplation on our relationships with ourselves and the world."
Each of the spaces was used either to display large-scale artworks or for stages or seating areas.
Several of the rooms were enclosed by tented roofs, while a tent-like structure with a trapezoidal profile was supported above the walls and displayed a clock counting down the 300 hours before the structure is dismantled.
The festival is located on the beach near the Seashore Chapel by Vector Architects, which was completed in 2016.
It is the latest work by Yansong, who recently created an installation from multicoloured fishing nets above an abandoned market.
Aranya Theater Festival took place between June 12 to 15. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.