Text description provided by the architects
Developed by Kunming Vanke and landscaped by Chengji Landscape, the Art Aesthetics Centre on Fuxian Lake in Chengjiang County, Yunnan, occupies a half-hill clearing chosen for its expansive views. Fuxian Lake, ringed by mountains and famous for its transparency, shifts constantly under Yunnan's changing sky: blue skies, drifting rain clouds, reflections of distant hills. The designers decided against intervening in this natural theatre, choosing instead to leave space and to build a single white floating corridor, a 'cloud', that links people to the landscape. Pure, unadorned white was chosen to match the clarity of the lake. The curved, lightweight ribbon rises and dips with the terrain, one end joining the mountain road as the centre's entrance and the other reaching toward the water; it encloses an open, blank lawn, its white outline drawing the sky into focus. The corridor changes expression with the weather: a joyful veil on clear days, a melancholic child in rain, a beam of light on the mountain at night. At the most beautiful viewing point, the corridor terminates in an art pavilion that deliberately recedes, with floor-to-ceiling glass, white floors and ceiling, and a large terrace projecting from the half-hill cliff, framing Fuxian Lake as a 270-degree panoramic screen. The 0.8-hectare project, completed in 2018, is less a building than a constructed path toward nature, its minimal gesture a quiet dialogue that allows each visitor to find their own conversation with the lake.
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