World renowned as the city of the Terra Cotta Warriors, Xi'an is one of the Four Great Ancient capitals of China, having hosted 13 dynasties in China's history. Formerly named Chang'an, the current Shaanxi Province capital was the origin of the ancient Silk Road. The Silk Road came into being in Han dynasty, and prospered throughout the Tang dynasty. Crossing through the Middle East while anchoring Europe and Asia, it played an important role in redefining political relations, economic trades, as well as cultural exchanges between the East and the West.
The objective of this international competition is to select the top 9 experienced architects who will join the project. Each invited team will be requested to design the spaces in one of the 9 cultural areas in the New Silk Road Park.
Echoing the Silk Road historical impact on cultural exchange between Asia and Europe, the New Silk Road cultural park will host 9 innovative cultural venues that will celebrate each culture of the Silk Road, while exploring the impact of intensified global communication and travel upon the merging of cultures. The 9 winning teams will be invited to enter in contractual agreement to integrate the design team for the development of the architectural spaces in their respective cultural area.
Competition Information
Xi’An, China
9 International Architecture Competitions
New Silk Road
In their era of worldwide communication, the New Silk Road cultural park will celebrate the gathering of the Cultures uniting Asia, Middle East and Europe.’’
Background
World renowned as the city of the Terra Cotta Warriors, Xi’an is one of the Four Great Ancient capital of China having hosted 3 dynasties in China’s history. Formerly named Chang’an, the current Shaanxi Province capital was the origin of the ancient Silk Road. The Silk Road came into being in Han dynasty, prospered during Tang dynasty. Crossing through Middle-East and anchoring Europe to Asia, it played an important role in redefining political relations, economic trades, as well as cultural exchanges between the East and the West. The New Silk road Cultural Park is located in New Qu jiang District, near the Big Wild Goose Pagoda in the South East of part of Xi’an. Established around the Nanhu (South Lake) , it covers over 00 hectares and its construction will start in mid 2006.
Echoing the Silk Road historical impact on cultural exchange between Asia and Europe, the New Silk Road cultural park will host innovative cultural venues that will celebrate each culture of the Silk road and explore the impact of the intensifying global communication and traveling upon the merging of cultures. The New Silkroad cultural park will be the central public space of the New Qu Jiang district, providing a high quality of urban living to its residents. As a unique cultural and research ensemble, it will consolidate Xi’an as the historical cultural capital of China and invite visitors of the world to explore the redefining of the cultures of Asia, Middle East and Europe in our communication era.
Objective of the competition
The objective of this international competition is to select 9 experienced architects, that will join the ongoing design
process under the guidance of the master design team: to reflect each cultural specificity and the relations with other cultures; to explore the impact of the historical Silk Road as well as current communication exchanges on each culture; to design the spaces in one of the 9 cultural areas in the New Silk Road Park.
Organizers
Xi’an Qu Jiang New District Administration Committee
Co-Organizers
The general design team comprising of : Dahan Design Consultant Institute (Xi’an, China) Intégral Jean Beaudoin (Montréal, Canada) / http://www.ijb.ca
Type of competition
9 simultaneous invitational international ideas competition. Following registration and application booklet presentation, a minimum of 2 and maximum of 4 participants will be invited to take part in each of the 9 competitions. Each competition will focus on one culture area of the Silk Road.
Site
The New Silk Road Cultural Park will be the largest cultural destination dedicated to studying the cultures inhabiting the threshold between China and Europe. In the city where the Silk Road originated, a sequence of 9 zones will define a journey through the cultures.
The list of the specific cultural areas
Eastern Turkish cultural areas (including Kazakhstan and neighboring countries)
Persian and Baloutch cultural areas (including Iran, Pakistan and neighboring countries)
Arabic cultural areas (including members of Arab league and neighboring countries)
Western Turkish and Caucasian area (including Turkey and neighboring countries)
Hebraic cultural area (including Israel and neighboring areas )
Eastern Europe destinations
Western Europe destinations
Mediteranean Europe destinations
Scandinavian destinations
For contextual and reasons related to the timeline of the project, the Asian Cultural areas, including Xin jiang
Province and India, are being developped through a procedure independant from the competition. Beyond expressing borders, the aim of the New Silk Road park is to explore thresholds between cultures. In that regards, each project and their content will acknowledge all cultural entities within an area and also its extension, in space and history, onto neighboring areas.
Program of the competition entries
A) The project submitted by invited competitors will explore answers to those topics:
How to express the distinct cultural identities of each area?
How those distinct cultural characteristics impact the built environment?
How is defined the anchoring of those cultures to the historical Silk Road
How architecture and design of space can define a “New Silk Road” acknowledging each culture and their interactions.
B) The projects will address the following contextual challenges through a proposal to be set in the New Silk Road
Cultural Park of Qu Jiang New District:
Thresholds between the site and the urban context;
The threshold areas between the neighboring cultural areas;
The inner circulation structure reflecting the identical culture;
A gathering place that will host large scale cultural events;
One or several buildings or landscape spaces that will express the specific cultural identities, through arts and rituals. The area can include exhibition, performing, archiving, meeting, shopping and living areas;
A waterfront landscape, also defined by the cultural identity of each area and including the regional vegetation, will anchor the site onto the lake. Each site will range from 5.000m² to 25.000m² in area and will host a built program of 7.500m² to 2.500m². The details of the program and site will be provided to invited competitors.
Eligibility
The competition is open worldwide. All the architects and their collaborators ( historians, researchers,artists ) have to demonstrate their knowledge on the identity and the history of the cultural area they are applying to.
Registration
Participants will be selected amongst entrants who send in the registration request and provide the application booklet that will include the following items: a letter of interest describing their understanding of the project and vision on the impact of a New Silk Road uniting cultures from China, through the Middle East and onto Europe (3 A4) a team description(1 A4); a work resume of team leader; (2 A4) a list of awards and publications; (1 A4) a selection of 3 related built projects they have realized.(6 A4) The details of the application booklet will be provided upon registration by email at [email protected].
Registration is free. Candidates must include their complete coordonates in their registration email (name, address). Registered candidates will receive by email a summary of questions and answers on 0th of April and 20th of april. The booklet will be submitted as a high format pdf file through internet.
Jury
A permanent group of juries will include 3 officials of Qu Jiang New District authorities and 4 members of the master design team, including lead architect Liu Kecheng of DDCI and Jean Beaudoin of IJB. A rotating group of 3 specialists and officials will complete the 9 jury sessions that will adress specificaly each cultural areas. The definite number and identity of jury members will be confirmed at the design stage.
Prizes
9 winning teams will be invited to enter in contractual discussions to join the design team for design development of the architectural spaces in their respective cultural area. The other teams will receive a 6.000$US stipend upon submitting the requested 3A panels of the competition.
Official Language
English and Mandarin.
Time line (Xi’An Time GMT +08:00 )
Registration open: 05 April 2006
Registration deadline: May rst 2006
Announcement of selected teams and design phase start: 04 May 2006
Submittal of project deadline: 04 June 2006
Jury: 02 June 2006 ~ 30 June 2006
Announcement of winners:July rst 2006
Contact
During the selection stage, the candidates can contact the organizers only by email at [email protected] .
Media and Architects Associations can contact the organizers at [email protected] .
- Yarışmanın şartnamesine ulaşmak için tıklayın.