Three Shadows, Photography Art Centre Renovation

Three Shadows Photography Art Centre is China’s first independent organization specializing in contemporary art.

Situated in Beijing’s Cao Chang Di Art District, the location includes 4600 square meters of landscape and 2600 square meters of architecture, designed in 2007 by artist Ai Weiwei.

The building appeared as an 'S'-shaped grey brick extrusion with mainly zenithal openings.

The bricks were conceived as a characterizing element of the building, the three-dimensional texture in the façade of the building, remained very graphical with a suggestive light-shade effect, and when lowered to ground level defines pathways and seating areas.

The building has been subjected to a minor intervention by the studio in 2017 in collaboration with the contemporary artist Huang Rui.

The client in 2021 commissioned studio O Ancilli & Meridor, of an overall renovation of the building, due to a major change in the functional requirements.

Finally, a more complete and radical renovation was carried out during the second part of 2021 and terminated at the beginning of 2022.

The exhibition space has been remodeled, intervening mainly in the new public areas such as the bookshop and the coffee bar.

The architectural volume has been sculpted and new openings (vertical/horizontal) conceived as lenses, focus on topical moments of the landscape (trees, stones, sculptures) creating a deep relationship between the interior and the surroundings.

The façade’s three-dimensional texture has been punched, becoming a solid perforated screen, which allows light and air to go through in the new office area.

The concept of 'lenses', in the interior spaces, becomes the ‘trait d’union’ characterizing the main areas with corten steel volumes.

Public and private paths have been designed to guarantee the final users, an experience, that goes beyond being simply in a container for art, however becoming a sculptural element itself: opening/closing, compressing/dilating, modeled organically on the requirements and site conditions.

The new intervention uses a material palette in line with the existing chromaticity of grey clay bricks, concrete, natural, and corten steel.