Dongqian Lake Club Houses

On the shore of Dongqian Lake, five sister pavilions stand. Alike in appearance yet each beautiful in a different way—some bold, some steady, some elegant, some lively—they live by the water, feet almost in it, needing one another yet standing independently, existing only as a group, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, facing the horizon. Again and again they watch themselves reflected in the water before them, and reflect one another in turn, absorbing light in different ways, individually beautiful yet more brilliant together. Kept at a distance from almost everyone, they instead provoke the visitor's curiosity to know them more deeply. Beginning from an almost flawless white and varying through form, they create a thousand variations of white, highlighting shadow and reflecting light, their forms changing ceaselessly. A brise-soleil like an eyelid modulates the openings so that light can enter the rooms. The Portuguese office of CC&CB Architects, working with Álvaro Siza and Carlos Castanheira and coordinated by Luís Reis, Nuno Campos and Pedro Carvalho, treats the pavilions as equal yet distinct: no beauty is identical or repeated, they are equal in their differences, closely adjacent yet each holding its own place. Visiting them again after time, one walks around them and enters them, gradually discovering their edges, curves, openings and blanks; created by the architects, the buildings nevertheless tell, without words, what they wish to become—mature now, their forms almost fully formed, and that, perhaps, is beauty.