236 Jindong New Development Area

Herzog & de Meuron was introduced to the Jinhua city authorities by the artist Ai Weiwei, a leading figure in contemporary Chinese art. Jinhua was the birthplace of Ai Weiwei’s father, Ai Qing, a celebrated 20th-century Chinese poet. The city commissioned Ai Weiwei to develop an outline scheme for Ai Qing Cultural Park as a memorial to his father. The designs for the new urban centre south of the park had already been completed when Ai Weiwei persuaded the authorities to rethink this part of the development and appoint Herzog & de Meuron to draw up new proposals for the district.

Although the original brief called only for a master plan, the tight timeframe coupled with other considerations soon made an integral design solution appear as the most desirable option. The project consequently far transcends a conventional urban planning scheme in that, despite its enormous scale by European standards, the designs embrace all buildings. The current program envisages the creation, within two years, of an urban centre to accommodate 100,000 inhabitants and capable, in the following years, of developing into the commercial and cultural focus for a population of up to 300,000.

The outline scheme proposes a new model for a Chinese city in its attempt to reconcile the grid city paradigm with the organic settlement. The existing rice fields on the plot form the basis for the design. After initially concentrating the entire planned accommodation in the northern section of the site to free up space for a park in the south and introduce a new planning density into the very monotonous, monumentally scaled urban environment, we proceeded to superimpose a grid over the entire site, the Field. This is interrupted in two areas, where water once flowed into the Yi Wu River. Here, a kind of fossilized nature forms the starting point for the Village and the Mountain. Both of these provide a counterpoint to the orthogonal sobriety of the Field grid, while adding a wide diversity of urban features and qualities.

All buildings are constructed from the very simple, locally sourced materials, clay brick and plaster. The surfaces of the individual volumes are punctuated by an array of newly developed patterns, textures and reliefs.
Herzog & de Meuron, 2006