Project Description
This project won a citation in the 2019 Progressive Architecture Awards
“The risk that it’s taking is to say we can reinterpret the purpose of building types in a day where a lot of these typologies don’t make sense anymore. It’s a different paradigm than a new opera house—it is looking at an open-air site being an opportunity for a sound experience that anyone can take part in.” —Claire Weisz, FAIA
The brief is almost too good to be true: Build a small, semi-enclosed concert hall into a forested mountainside, situated high above a scenic valley less than 200 yards from the Great Wall of China. This was the happy problem confronting Beijing’s Open Architecture, and the firm responded with a design that seems at once a celebration of the site’s manifold possibilities and a mature exercise in architectural restraint.
Located near the city of Chengde, the Chapel of Sound is less than 7,000 square feet in size—most of its seating is outdoor on a grassy lawn and the building proper doubles as a band shell. The structure itself is a sort of inverted ziggurat, with one side nearly flush with a nearby hill; in plan, it resembles the body of a guitar, complete with a sound hole in the form of a rooftop aperture that enhances the sonic quality while allowing all performances to take place under the open sky.
The form invites still other allusions: Seen in section, the ringed slopes of the tiered seating recall the contours of the human ear (a comparison expressly made by the architects), while from the outside the rough surface of the building and its irregular shape make it appear like some giant mountain boulder that’s rolled down from the distant ridge. This particular effect was made possible through the use of concrete blended with local aggregate—a nod to the natural context that also simplified the tricky construction logistics and allowed the shell to be poured on-site despite the remote locale.
More than just a tourist draw, the project is intended to act as an asset to the community. Even when not in active use as a music venue, its cavernous interior will make it a place of quiet contemplation for the citizens of Chengde.
Project Credits
Project: Chapel of Sound, Chengde, China
Client: Aranya, China
Architect: Open Architecture, Beijing . Li Hu, Huang Wenjing, AIA (principals-in-charge); Zhou Tingting, Fang Kuanyin, Lin Bihong, Kuo Chunchen, Hu Boji, Yang Ling, Li Li, Chen Yang
Interior Designer: Open Architecture
Structural/M/E/P/Civil Engineer: Arup
Landscape Architect: Guangzhou Turenscape
Lighting Designer: Beijing NingZhiJing Lighting Design
Theater Consultant: JH Theatre Architecture Design Consulting
Size: 6,641 square feet
Cost: Withheld