Tiangang Art Center

Located over 100 kilometers from Beijing and more than 200 kilometers from Shijiazhuang, at the foot of the Taihang Mountains and beside Yishui Lake, a village in Yi County, Baoding, Hebei, has undergone tremendous change over two years. One hundred forty-two square kilometers of mountain and water have become an architectural testing ground where new projects frequently break ground, while art is sown, takes root, and grows in the countryside. A pristine ancient village is blending fashion and art into rustic simplicity—not far from the city, closer to life. Tiangang Village, with its circular art museum, is the fuse for all this change. Cultivate the soil first. In 2019, Longfor Taihe Group reorganized its cultural tourism and commercial lines, and Yuan'ge Cultural Tourism Group was formally established. The Yuan'ge Yishui Lake project, including Tiangang Zhixing Village, entered planning. The same year, Jialan Architecture was invited to take charge of planning, architectural design, and operations. At the time, the developer and design teams faced a site in urgent need of redemption, and Tiangang Village was the first step. Facing problems such as isolated transportation, poor infrastructure, conservative attitudes, and generally low education levels among the workforce, Tiangang Village in the deep mountains of Yi County, though surrounded by mountains and water with beautiful scenery and rich folk culture, was overlooked. The project demonstrates how rural revitalization can begin with architecture as a catalyst—not as a singular intervention, but as part of a holistic approach that cultivates the soil for social, economic, and cultural renewal.