CROSSBOUNDARIES attends the exhibition of Pingshan District Art Museum in Shenzhen with an installation artwork THE KNOWN, a response to the exhibition’s theme – UNKNOWN CITY.
Today’s urban physical space is increasingly becoming a product of modularization of various materials. It is an eternal issue of how human beings deal with the relationship between themselves and the manufactured environment, that they place their spiritual needs within.
Curators: ZHANG Yuxing, YE Cheng, HAN Jing
Organizer & Sponsor: People’s Government of Pingshan District, Shenzhen
Exhibition Duration: March 30, 2019- September 30, 2019
Location: Shenzhen, China
Size: 10 sqm
Design Period: February 2019 – March 2019
Material: concrete, mirror, steel
Partners in charge: Binke Lenhardt, DONG Hao
Design Team: GAO Yang, YU Zhaoxiong, HOU Jinghui, HAO Hongyi, HUANG Biao
Collaborator: China Construction Science & Technology Co., ltd. (FAN Zesen, XU Muye, LUO Chuanwei)
Photographs: BAI Yu, DONG Hao, HAO Hongyi
The work highly abstracts and refines urban materials – concrete, steel and glass – to form a cycled mirroring image. In a semi-open room enclosed by four mirror plains, a concrete stair is hung upside down, a prefabricated element produced in a factory, symbolizing modern industrial achievements like prefabricated construction that can accelerate the constructions on buildings and the growth of our cities.
Stepping into this installation, viewers are surrounded by an infinite space created by the recursive effect. More puzzling, the stair joins its images in the mirrors creating an illusion of a closed path, reminding viewers of the famous work “Relativity” by Maurits Cornelis Escher. One can easily get confused to determine if it is going up or down. Within the space of visual dislocations, viewers can experience the transformation of and separation between reality and illusion, objective and subjective or individuals and groups.
Cities always offer unpredictable temptations and confusions to individuals, even though all the physical parts of them are known facts to us.
CROSSBOUNDARIES
Crossboundaries contributes to a vital built environment through architecture, environmental design and urban regeneration. We create enduring architecture that often deals with remarkable technical processes, yet always has a pleasant material touch and human atmosphere. Founded in 2005 and organized as an international partnership, Crossboundaries has staff originating from and trained in different parts of the world, with offices in Beijing, China and Frankfurt, Germany. We provide unique spatial solutions deriving from local cultural knowledge and transnational expertise.
After receiving their Masters Degrees in Architecture from Pratt Institute DONG Hao and Binke Lenhardt worked in New York for several years before making their home in China. They both started in the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (BIAD) before founding Crossboundaries in 2005 as an international partnership. They teach at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) and recently also at Tsinghua University.
Crossboundaries is working for both the public and private sector, ranging from smaller enterprises to large corporations, from government agencies to non-profit organizations. They completed a great range of small scale interior designs and architectural projects of larger sizes, their portfolio includes Soyoo Joyful Growth Center, Family Box, Aimer’s Lingerie Factory, showrooms and offices in collaboration with Siemens and BMW. The office is also engaged in theoretical research projects such as Citymakers and House Vision, exhibited at 15th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. And also in 2018 BEIJING HOUSE VISION.
Crossboundaries’work has been published across a range of leading industry magazines and is also frequently featured in online design media. We have received multiple international accolades, most recently the 2018 and 2019 German Design Award, Architizer A+ Award 2018, the Architecture MasterPrize 2018, 2AAA 2018, etc., and were shortlisted for the WAN 2018, Architizer A+ Award 2016, etc.
