Matsui Theatre

Pine-Needle Coat Theatre is a temporary landscape intervention by Kong Xiangwei Studio in the Yunguoshanchi tea-cum-art district in Wujia Village, Rizhao, Shandong, commissioned by the Yunguoshanchi tea estate. The site began as an unremarkable pine grove on a hill that estate owner Yan Zaoning had spent twenty years converting from barren land into tea terraces. Yan initially planned to cut the pines down, pine needles are highly flammable, but hesitated because he had planted them himself. Kong proposed instead a theatre beneath the trees, and the design grew from a moment when, as pine needles drifted down in the breeze, he wished he could weave a net to catch them; the needles are the pine tree coat, and the project is named accordingly. Surveying the grove on foot, Kong found an existing ring-shaped gap between the pines, and the south side offered a natural raised platform for a stage. Laying out the line in plaster, Yan was astonished that no tree needed to be cut, the grove seemed already to have been waiting for the path. Steel was chosen for its low cost and speed; master welder Li helped select 32-millimetre hollow tubes as primary structure and 15-millimetre tubes as secondary. Initial sketches called for a row of upright trees, but weary, crooked hand-drawn drafts overnight suggested something more playful: instead of uprights, the team welded sculptural, leaning trees and planted them into the ground like spring saplings. The trees are structurally linked, and the net is hung on a 1.5-metre module scaled to the trunks, flexible enough to curl naturally yet strong enough to hold. The new trees occupy about a fifth of the grove, standing in affectionate opposition to the natural pines. The sculptural trees are silver; against the deep green pines, silver and green become the theatre palette. In sunlight they gleam; under overcast the pines deepen; in rain the mesh hangs with droplets; at dawn or dusk the light turns violet or gold. Grey basalt gravel underfoot picks up the moving shadows of pines, the geometric shadows of the structure and the fine mesh of the net, layered together. At night the whole scene becomes dreamlike, the silver trees floating against the dark green forest. The first mesh panel went up just as needles began to fall; pairs of needles hang upside-down on the net, swaying in mountain wind, given new life and a Zen-like levitation. The theatre is boundless in use, stage, stroll, bird-song, summer cool, winter snow, meditation, and also a stage for squirrels, butterflies and toddlers on the soft gravel.