Pavilions in Bailianjing Park by Taranta Creations,Chine

Taranta Creations designed a series of art pavilions that were installed in Bailianjing Park along the Hangpu river in Shanghai, China.

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Bailianjing Park Pavilions by Taranta Creations

Bailianjing park is located in the north of Pudong section of the former expo site, along the Huangpu river. Already opened during the China Expo 2010, the park claims its crucial role after the expo. While most of the expo structures are currently demolished, the park remains as a permanent public waterfront. Besides the maintenance of the china pavilion, the expo exhibition center, the Mercedes Benz stadium and the expo boulevard, it is unclear what will happen with the large amount of unoccupied land after the torn down of all the country and corporation pavilions. Continuing the theme of the expo “better city, better life” the green waterfront should function as an attractor of high quality urban developments. A series of art installations along the green belt are part of the landscape design. Among the designers for the different art installations was Taranta Creations.

Park life
If you visit the parks in shanghai, you will notice that the Chinese people use these public spaces extensively. From early in the morning till dusk, people come to the park to meet, exercise, eat or relax. You find people practicing tai chi, dancing, singing karaoke, drinking tea or playing the typical Chinese mahjong game.

The objective of our design was to create sculptures that added more than only visually quality to the park. We wanted to create an installation that enables and facilitates this typical park life. Inspired by the diversity of Chinese recreational cultures, each sculpture is designated for a specific function to suit for multiple purposes. One sculpture will be equipped with microphones and a screen, so it can be used for singing karaoke. Another will contain trays to store chess and card games. In one of the pavilions you can place bottles, for keeping your drinks cold during the hot summers. Or you can dance on the tunes produced by the “jukebox” sculpture.

Tea pavilions
The sculptures are designed as small pavilions. This way we create a reference to the ancient Chinese Fengkafei tea pavilions, which have always been small centers for recreational and social purposes. Given the location next to the river, we decided to place the pavilions on poles. Not only does this protect the pavilions against a flood from the river, but also makes people aware of this existing threat.  As a contrast to the normally gray sky that you usually will experience in shanghai, we choose to execute the pavilions in fresh and bright colors. The colors in combination with the shapes give the cluster of pavilions the appearance of candy. As we believe our pavilions can be the “candy” for people to visit the park. small wind turbines placed on top of the pavilions provide the pavilions with the necessary electricity. During the night the pavilions light the environment.

Bubble gate
At the start of the path that leads towards the pavilions we place a pavilion that represents the modern version of the old Chinese gate. The bubble shape gate is a reminder of the flamboyant architecture that we have experienced at the expo pavilions.

Design team: Enrico Taranta, Giorgio Radojkovic, Juriaan Calis