Causeway Bay Restaurant | Aiyang Ma

Mark, who specializes in Italian minimalism and luxury house design, was entrusted by Mu Zong, the owner of Chongqing Causeway Bay Restaurant, to renovate the Causeway Bay Restaurant Fortune Center Store, which has been operating for nearly ten years, to meet the new needs of the surrounding business consumer groups for the dining environment.

Mark tries to break boundaries and start with a new vision, striving to blend traditional Chinese style symbols with modern minimalist elements.Drawing on imagery, reconstructing the past and the present, the new and the old, the modern and the traditional, the light and the dark, the magnificent and the simple, the natural Vientiane and the architecture are exquisitely and organically integrated.At a time when Chinese culture is gradually returning, it is necessary to build a new commercial space that not only meets the aesthetic needs of modern people, but also pursues the artistic conception of traditional culture, and is rich in the heritage and pattern of the times.

Vientiane is organic, and the environment is taken by images

The original exterior area is used to create a corridor space connecting the indoor and outdoor, and the symbiosis and integration of the building and the natural environment are realized through the technique of understanding the symbols of oriental architecture.

Not confined to the appearance of traditional Chinese architecture, the design visualizes the artistic conception of classical Chinese houses.Construct elastic Chinese columns, beams and purlins with modern architectural language, and express Chinese symbols with modern minimalist techniques, under the shade of a dense tree, the mortise and tenon joints are gentle, the cornices are brisk, and the straight lines and curves in the roof are full of charm.Oriental charm is blended into contemporary design in subtle humility and bold breakthrough, where modern culture and ancient charm are blended, presenting a smart, fresh and unconventional oriental impression

The entrance courtyard is the main entrance of the restaurant, creating a world and a field here.The garden is built under the eaves, and a section of exquisite and free Soviet-style garden is intercepted in the space.A tree is the central axis, and the field of vision extends to both ends, stepping into the ripples of natural artistic conception.

The four sides are transparent, the plants surround the courtyard, the two worlds inside and outside are parallel, the external landscape is hidden from time to time under the cover of the plants, like the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty paintings, a scoop is like the river and the sea, and a tree is a generation of mountains and rivers.

The tree is an extension of life, a continuation of the story

Walk through thousands of mountains and rivers to find a suitable tree.The designer wanted it to be not just an object, but an emotional connection to the project.In the end, the designer and the owner found this plum tree by the pond of the owner's hometown.As if it is the impact of the soul, the tree has a superposition of meaning and life, no longer an object, a commodity, it carries the growth mark of the owner's childhood, and the guests calmly put the shade of the wine east wind, and the pavilion is in the courtyard of the restaurant.

"Jia Li is leaning on each other, and the garden is spring." , The plum blossoms bloom and wither, and life entails them, becoming the texture of the restaurant and outlining the artistic conception of this place.

The horse-tied piles on both sides are also ancient pieces found in the old goods market with the owners, and they are placed in the courtyard to make the rhythm of the garden music more full, and it is also a metaphor for entering the starting point of the garden.

The courtyard as a prologue directly expresses the designer's intentions. The mottled and heavy granite is rustic, and people walk among them, climbing up the stairs. Take a leisurely stroll and move to a different scene.

Passing through a plum tree, the electronic screen in the center of the courtyard plays the fragmentary symbols of traditional culture, and uses the flowing cultural form to further deepen the visual perception.

In the body of modern architecture, from the eaves to the courtyard, from the tethered horse stakes to the masonry, from the flowers and trees to the landscaping, to the dynamic cultural fragments, the expression techniques are eclectic, borrowing the expression of oriental elements, and gradually introducing people's spirits into the oriental artistic conception of ancient Tang and Song paintings.

Pattern painting, lyrical freehand

This contrasts with the modern minimalism of the building's exterior. In the hall, the color deepens, the lights dim, and the gray and fresh outside turn into the thick ink and color of cinnabar, dark blue, and red gold. In this way, I dreamed of the garden and returned to the Tang Dynasty.

The designer made a special trip to Mogao Grottoes to look for the light and shadow of the Tang Dynasty in the murals of Dunhuang.In the zero light piece, the 5,000-year-old light slowly blooms in the darkness, radiating the boundless universe and the wind and moon.The shape of a cave resembles a dome palace, with thick and bright Chinese red pillars outlining the looming corridors and towers around it in the gloom.The semi-circular arc-shaped welcome desk is convex between the hall pillars, and the space volume is gorgeous and solemn, and it is smart and lively.

The sky is melodious in the air, and the mirror reflection of the middle top forms a sense of space and perception together with the beams and columns.The light strip under the mirror is a modern expression of the flowing ribbon and the light flowing clouds on the mural, "the flowing clouds and the birds fly back, and the breeze and the moon caress Huaying." "They pass through the room, they flutter gracefully in the air, the condensed glass mirrors reflect this flow, and the glacier hangs upside down in the sky, dreamy and ethereal.

In the space, the designer tries to re-understand and attach importance to the beauty of architecture, explore how to express the relationship between space and architecture, space and environment, architecture and humanities, how to form an artistic conception, and strive to make the relationship between modern architecture and traditional culture rich and harmonious.

Patterns, heavy colors and halos, small and brilliant subtle art in space.Walking to the hall, the gorgeous and ingenious Dunhuang treasure pattern on the beam, the Jialing Pinga bird, the geometric filling flower, the rebound pipa and the lotte, honeysuckle, and the caisson; After passing through the corridor, the flower and bird patterns in the end scene, the twig pattern; The gourd pattern on the wall, the auspicious cloud pattern on the stone pillar... There are Dunhuang treasures solemn and pure, and there are majestic and gorgeous Middle Earth culture.

Patterns, originally the natural awe and emotional expression of the ancestors in utensils, calligraphy and painting, and architecture, have become the inspiration and sustenance in our lives after 5,000 years of culture and years.In the space, the designer regains the beauty of the pattern, but does not overinterpret the brilliance of the pattern, which is the yearning for the memory of the ethnic group and the history of the nation, and it is not the poetic return to the other side of modern life.

Painting has always been an inseparable artistic language of architecture.

The new cork veneer material is selected as the canvas, and the hall, private room, and corridor are transformed into a long-axis picture scroll, which is the embodiment of the canvas texture and nostalgia, and the story, time and culture are slowly unfolded in the picture scroll, "Lady Guoguo's Spring Outing", "Gao Yi Tu", "The Night Revels of Han Xizai", "Tuning the Piano and Sipping Tea", "Shepherd Horse"... Like "scattered perspective", multiple spatial narratives are overlapped and blended in this situation, different scenes, intolerable content, spatial vision is no longer flat, virtual and real are interspersed, and continuous multi-dimensional iterations are presented at the architectural level, expressing the dialogue between time and space between the present and the past.

Another kind of relationship between the virtual and the real, the soft film luminous lines are used to shape the exterior decoration between the mural and the space, and the metal lines ensure the overall appearance of the picture, and at the same time form a sense of introversion, obscure and introverted, seemingly transparent and impermeable, realizing the characteristic expression of traditional Chinese architectural technique - "outer reality and inner void".

While increasing the richness and layering of the space, the ancient and the modern gaze dialogue, the combination of virtual and real, and the flying carving, forming the flow and rhythm in the space; It is also in line with the current minimalist aesthetics, while conveying the emotional color of traditional Chinese culture.

Sheet stone silent line, pleasant and pleasant

The classical complex of the Chinese is always impregnated with life emotions such as landscapes, nature, plants and trees, poetry and painting.In the design, a large number of imagery symbols are used to serve the space, such as line screens full of hints and metaphors, abstract door handles, mural recesses emphasizing artistic functionality, and old red-colored masonry. Symbols are used to express the cognition and understanding of aesthetic consciousness, and increase the playful meaning of aesthetic imagery in space and psychology.

Emotions are never directly vented, they are inherited, circulated, interpreted, constructed in the long river of history, until they form a new sense of pleasure, which is an endless "appearance" of consciousness.

The end of the second floor is made of micro garden landscaping with stone and moss, and there is a mirror surface on the top, the light and shadow are diffuse, and the artistic conception is infinite. At the corner of the wall in the aisle area, the designer symbolized the traditional stone pillars, and the niche was embedded in the yang corner to convey the traditional artistic conception with modern techniques.

From the hall to the staircase, from the aisle to the end, the design grasps the rhythm of the ups and downs of the whole territory, creating a rhythmic space realm, singing three stacks, opening and closing in all directions, and faintly echoing the rhythm of poetry and painting in the mural.

In the processing and enrichment of naturalization, symbolization and imagery of space, a beautiful and appreciable beauty is formed.This beauty extends to the box, but instead makes the pursuit of introduction. A few beams of light wash out the cork veneer and press it to print on the background wall, creating a simple and natural texture.

At the same time, tracing back to the origin, during this period, the way of eating returns to the essence. The light is pressed down, and a German Occhino lamp is selected to make the light and form extremely pure.Enhance the atmosphere of the meal, pay attention to the rendering of the ingredients by lighting, and only dye the table area, so that people's focus can be on the ingredients and the meal itself.

The epidemic has changed the way of dining, and in the whole space, the designer has removed the traditional booth hall and replaced it with a private room, so that the environment and landscape coexist in harmony.It not only focuses on the space design, but also on the expression of the entire architectural language, the arrangement of the interior and exterior spaces of the building, the light and shade, the appearance and color, the pattern and the landscape, all have their meanings and forms.It is a space that is popular with the elderly and is full of personal style, condensing time and space, and catering to the preferences of young people.

More importantly, the poetic attitude and cultural context that the designer gives to the space in the work is the expression of self-interest, but also the representation of the deep experience of the soul.

Project informtion

Project Name: Causeway Bay Restaurant

Location: Chongqing, China

Area: 1800㎡

Design firm: Ma Aiyang Interior Design Office

Designer: Mark 

Assistant Design: Zhang Linling, Zhou Li, Chen Xiong

Furnishing Consultant: Qin Yongyi

Engineering Construction: Chongqing Di'an Decoration Design Engineering Co.,Ltd.

Photographer: Zhang Qilin, Xiao Ye