Bamboo Theatre / DnA

Curated by Joanna Wong

Architects: DnA
Year: 2015
Photographs:Ziling Wang, Dan Han

Text description provided by the architects. Bamboo is a quickly growing grass that is found in every garden in China and as spare woodland in many hilly regions.

The importance of bamboo in Chinese culture arises from a range of qualities such as its flexible structure, the sparkling green lighting effect that a bamboo grove engenders, its many varieties, and its technical properties as a material. For the village of Hengkeng, Xu Tiantian designed a theatre stage that is inspired by a historical account.

For the construction of the bamboo dome, the architect used a low-tech approach that takes the rapid growth and bendable quality of the material into account. Once installed, the growing dome requires little regular maintenance: younger bamboo sprouts are woven into the existing dome and old poles are removed.

This bioorganic architecture in natural surroundings facilitates activities ranging from village opera performances to individual meditation in nature.