The visitor center in Hengshan Temple, designed by Latitude Studio, aims to promote tourism in the historical-rural area of Southwest Datong, China. The project hopes to respect the ancestral history of the site while providing a modern architecture from which to appreciate the history of China.
Read on for more information after the break.
The Hengshan Temple is a monument of the Wei Dynasty (386-534 AD) and holds strong traditional and ancestral ties to the site. The site is also characterized by a dam which is going to promote an aquatic recreation area for visitors to the site.
In this scenario, the architectural purpose is focused on how to utilize the distance between the lowest elevation of the dam and the highest. The focus on this characteristic creates the possibility of taking the full potential of what it would be otherwise a basic element –a stair- and make of it an architectural opportunity to create a vertical promenade.
This promenade is materialized away from picturesqueness that would be created in the misunderstanding of this characteristic enterprise. It is looked for a new different model of approach; one which is closer to the ancestral sense of the local heritage than the literal reproduction of the local forms.
Architects: Latitude Studio with BIAD Location: Southwest Datong, Shanxi Province, China Year: 2010 Status: Concept design
