Renovated Community Centre With Chinese Historical Play Stage

Abstract: The traditional play stage once played a big part in Chinese architecture. They witnessed the most common public entertainment for Chinese people, and became a unique icon of traditional architecture, arts and urban life. In today’s society, though the traditional play stage dose not seem to disappear thanks to the developing notion of architectural preservation, it still has to face the fact that its initial identity has been lost a lot. In this project, I intend to explore on one well protected stage and its context, to seek the possibility of bringing back the spirit of traditional urban life to this particular type of architecture. To achieve this, I take advantage of two existing old buildings and a modern construction to become a whole site, by demolishing the poor designed modern part and restoring the historical part, creating a response and communication with the old play stage. While work on the renovation in a very particular traditional and cultural context, it is always necessary to find the balance between the preservation of old and generating of new. This site locates on a peaceful small town in southeast China, where the skyline and architecture are almost original. That brings the challenge that what precisely can I inherit from the vernacular architecture, and to what extent should I blend it into modernism. The answer might be found in the end of this project, and yet requires more attention for traditional architecture restoration from the publics.