Guilin is famous for its dramatic landscape of limestone cliffs and forests lining the Li River. It’s a hotbed for tourists, Chinese and Western alike, who go in search of the pure landscapes portrayed throughout Chinese art.
Guilin has served as the backdrop for many Chinese paintings, but also several Hollywood films—including Star Wars: Episode III, in which an entire planet’s environs were directly modeled on chains of photographs of the town’s rounded, irregular mountain peaks and tree tops. In a similar fashion, the fractured façade of this small restaurant simultaneously fragments and pieces together panoramas of forests, river, and mountainscape.
The Tianmen Mountain Restaurant sits, or rather, stands on the edge of Guilin’s serene Li River, a modest “viewfinder” unthreatened by the jagged mountain ridges towering above. The restaurant’s ground floor is elevated in response to seasonal flooding, while also providing views of the river and nearby bamboo groves. The building’s triangulated envelope is perforated on all sides, opening up the interiors to the surrounding landscape.
The 627-square meter interior space, made from a locally-sourced fir, is warm and “natural,” reflecting the woods beyond. Steel beams support the roof, while accommodating a composition of wood planks, glass, and mullions. Light falls in from all sides, from above and reflected off the river below. Of the overall impression architect Liu Chong writes: “one’s perception is surrounded by the combined power of building materiality, natural lighting and adjacent landscape. This new sense is generated by the juxtaposition of the building merging with the natural surroundings.”
“While the rain falling in drops, there was a soft, hushed secondary light around the warm interiority which constructed by fir, and the beautiful scene of river rise gleaming……Everything, the water, the air, sound, material presences, textures…… calmed people’s heart. The sense of expectation that filled them while they were sitting there.”
Guilin has served as the backdrop for many Chinese paintings, but also several Hollywood films—including Star Wars: Episode III, in which an entire planet’s environs were directly modeled on chains of photographs of the town’s rounded, irregular mountain peaks and tree tops. In a similar fashion, the fractured façade of this small restaurant simultaneously fragments and pieces together panoramas of forests, river, and mountainscape.
The Tianmen Mountain Restaurant sits, or rather, stands on the edge of Guilin’s serene Li River, a modest “viewfinder” unthreatened by the jagged mountain ridges towering above. The restaurant’s ground floor is elevated in response to seasonal flooding, while also providing views of the river and nearby bamboo groves. The building’s triangulated envelope is perforated on all sides, opening up the interiors to the surrounding landscape.
The 627-square meter interior space, made from a locally-sourced fir, is warm and “natural,” reflecting the woods beyond. Steel beams support the roof, while accommodating a composition of wood planks, glass, and mullions. Light falls in from all sides, from above and reflected off the river below. Of the overall impression architect Liu Chong writes: “one’s perception is surrounded by the combined power of building materiality, natural lighting and adjacent landscape. This new sense is generated by the juxtaposition of the building merging with the natural surroundings.”
“While the rain falling in drops, there was a soft, hushed secondary light around the warm interiority which constructed by fir, and the beautiful scene of river rise gleaming……Everything, the water, the air, sound, material presences, textures…… calmed people’s heart. The sense of expectation that filled them while they were sitting there.”
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