PAVILION OF HISTORICAL IMAGES, WUDAOKOU, BEIJING, CHINA
2016.2. - 2016.5., 3RD YEAR MASTERCLASS, GUEST PROF. GONG DONG (VECTOR ARCHITECTS)
COOPERATIVE WORK WITH WEIRAN LIU
Wudaokou, the 5th crossroad of railway, was once an important location in the old Beijing city. Ching Hua Yuan Station, which is now about 400 meters away from the site, the current railway crossing, was a station on China's earliest railway line that dates back to 1910s. The Station has long been abandoned, and surrounded by crowded dilapidating residential blocks and further away, skyscrapers. Wudaokou was also a place of early commercial development and an early base of pop culture in Beijing since the 1980s. The Finance School here educated those who now become bank presidents and senior officials in economy in China.
A pavilion, or museum, exhibiting historic photos, videos and audio clips of Wudaokou will be established here to 'retrieve' such memories in the current tedious, aridity and chaos on the site. Visitors will be temporarily isolated from the concrete outside present, and to simoutaneously observe the clear, vivid history images and the bluured outside urban world, for by 'seizing' the fluctuant light in urban environment by arranging 'viewframes' and exhibition rooms towards each direction of the site and using mirror grilles to 'project' the movement, the ongoing reality becomes a background of history, virtually and metaphysically.