Shanghai International Warehouse
The project is going to take place in the west bund area of Shanghai, which is nowadays, link to contemporary art, but in the ancient time it had an industrial nature. The warehouse can host both the nature of the area where it is going to take place and the new wave of contemporary art and culture. Water and Huangpu river are the energy that generated our project and it dialogues with it. Shanghai International Warehouse acts as the boats, as floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea. It is a small point where international debates might be host; a box capable of collecting the culture of the time, the “Zeitgest”, the german expression, used during romanticism, for describing the contemporary trends in terms of cultural value, costumes, social relation and most important ways of living.
Shanghai is expanding so fast that mapping it is a constant work facing a relentless change of streets, city patterns, built environment, metropolitan lines and so on. Nodes of attractions are transforming and rising in different part of the city, becoming catalysts for the surrounding character of the place.
Unpredictable like no other city in China, a gateway for international firms, the place for finance, a real mercantile city based on trade that is collecting goods from all over the world. Shanghai is searching for culture and is watching outside to understand how to react to its metropolis way of life.
The art boom is a step for the creation of a background of art ethic and because of this, young collectors are rising, trying to fill the big number of museums being built during these years, thousands of them every year all around China. The growing amount of art exhibitions spaces require an interchange of art pieces that involve different actors in the field of logistics, conservation and storage of artworks.
Private and public are collecting valuables like art pieces, luxury objects, antiquities, design pieces…
We followed this trend and decided to answer the need of a safe place for these kind of goods, a deposit of valuables for public and private museums, collectors, galleries and citizens.
The deposit is surrounded by other services and first of all a laboratory for conservation and restauration of fine art, that provides long term care for the goods stored in the caveau, then offices for the bureaucratic part of the service, conference centre to build up an educational service on conservation and restauration of goods and a public part.
The building must handle the logistic part, arrival and departures of goods, move them from the truck or the boat, to a safe place or a laboratory and all the way around and the customer service part, that takes care of users checking their objects.
Nevertheless, it takes care of the public, giving a space where people can gather. Activities such us exhibition, events, conferences, lecture but also bars and restaurants are going to take place at the ground floor.
It is completely permeable thanks to the dynamics shape that it is both structural and suggestive for people who are going to live space.
