Bamboo Pavilion
To the Chinese, bamboo is always associated with nobler human qualities such as resilience, honesty and humility. The practical and adaptability of bamboo scaffolding not only furnishes buildings, but are also used in constructing temporary theatres where troupes provide entertainment to communities.
These economical and functional supporting elements were used to design a temporary outdoor performance venue and symbolic focus for the Festival of Vision - Hong Kong in Berlin, part of a bilateral exchange project between the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture and Muffathalle / Goethe-Forum held in 2000. This was mirrored in Hong Kong during the exhibition ‘Berlin in Hong Kong’. In Berlin, the Bamboo Pavilion was erected on the pond outside the House of World Cultures, representing two starkly different cultural traditions and sensibilities. In Hong Kong, the Pavilion was erected at Tamar, a re-claimed former naval dockyard, over an abstract ‘pond’ of loose pebbles, establishing a paradoxical relationship with the city’s surrounding highrises.
The bamboo framework highlights the bespoke craft of jointing, yet the triangular form of the Pavilion is contemporary and highly engineered - none of the members are horizontal or vertical as in traditional bamboo structures. The bamboo simultaneously fulfills the functions of exterior enclosure and structural support, its gossamer translucency is a result of the lattice-like, rhythmic placement of the linear bamboo members.
