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Sino-Italian Cultural

Exchange City

Reception Center

Chengdu, China

o introduce this meeting of culture, aoe created a Cultural
Exchange City Reception Center in the city where it all begun.
TThe marriage of the Italian and Sino style was at the heart of
the project to illustrate the cultural mix and was adapted to merge the
structure and its surrounding.
Chengdu, hailed as the land of abundance, has a civilization history of
4,500 years old and a city construction history of 2,300 years old. In
the 13th century, Marco Polo came to Chengdu, the Corridor Bridge,
the Jinjiang River and the cloth of ancient Sichuan became the most
colourful parts of his travelogue. In the 21st century, against the
background of the Belt and Road Initiative, the planning of Chengdu
Tianfu Cultural and Creative City came into being, and the Sino-
Italian Cultural Exchange City Reception Center is an important
part of the City, aiming to build a platform for cultural exchange
and civilization interchange between the two countries. The project
is located about 36 kilometres from the centre of Chengdu, planned
to cover an area of 17,815 square metres, with a construction area
of 2,107 square metres. At the platform of the exhibition hall, the
creative group projects on the east side and the natural landscape of
Yanqi Wetland are treats for visitors.
The architects hoped to find the intersection of the two in the
cultural differences between the East and the West: the overall design
concept was taken from the “Ruyi”, which has been used in China
since ancient times as a gift to foreign ambassadors to signify the
conclusion of friendly relations and the peace of the two countries;
while the Italian pavilion draws its design inspiration from Italy’s
most representative piazza, shaping an intimate and pleasantly scaled
urban art living room.

The design elements are extracted from the ancient Roman arches and
domes, and the smooth enclosure of multiple circular squares is used
to form a rich and versatile use of space to meet the multi-functional
requirements of exhibition, meeting, reception, and catering. The
use of pure white on all walls gives the building a different three-
dimensional light effect in the sunlight, while the large area of glass
extends the indoor space to the outside, and allows the outdoor
scenery to be fully mapped in, becoming a dynamic mural of the four
seasons. With the change of wall materials, the designer creates the
feeling of space that is both inside and outside, and the pavilion is
thus perfectly integrated into the surrounding natural environment.

The harmony between architecture and nature lies in the use of natural
resources as well as in the protection of the natural environment. The
pavilions on both sides are designed with top lighting so that the
light is evenly diffused in the indoor and outdoor spaces. In addition,
the introduction of multi-level outdoor greenery and the use of
buoyant ventilation devices to channel airflow into the building

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