New cultural scenery along the thousand-year-old canal (decoding·new cultural landmark)
Interior view of Beijing City Library.
Photo by our reporter Zhang Wujun
Going to museums to watch exhibitions, going to theaters to watch performances, and going to cultural centers to learn skills has become an increasingly popular way of life.
As material life becomes increasingly abundant, people are more thirsty for high-quality cultural life.
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China proposed to improve the modern public cultural service system and innovatively implement cultural projects to benefit the people.
The "Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Public Cultural Services" proposes to build distinctive and tasteful public cultural spaces based on urban and rural characteristics, expand the coverage of public cultural services, and enhance effectiveness.
In recent years, various regions have organically combined the improvement of public cultural service levels with the urbanization process, resulting in the emergence of a number of "new cultural landmarks" that enrich cultural supply and highlight urban characteristics.
This edition launches a series of reports "Decoding·New Cultural Landmarks" starting today, focusing on the practices of representative public cultural venues in various places in terms of venue design, cultural exchanges, and services to benefit the people, and exploring how to better meet people's spiritual and cultural needs.
--editor
In the spring season, in Green Heart Forest Park, the sub-central city of Beijing, the three major cultural buildings, Beijing Art Center, Beijing City Library, and Beijing Grand Canal Museum, welcome an endless stream of visitors.
On December 27, 2023, three major cultural buildings were opened to the public. Alongside the Millennium Canal, the construction of Beijing's urban sub-center added a new cultural landmark.
Since the beginning of planning and construction, Beijing has adhered to the construction requirements of "world vision, international standards, Chinese characteristics, and high-point positioning" and the "people-centered" construction concept, allowing the three major cultural buildings to help enhance the cultural temperament of the sub-central city. Meet the diverse cultural needs of citizens.
The architectural shape is quite creative
Citizen Liu Ming came to Beijing for work soon and planned to use his weekend to visit various cultural landmarks in Beijing. He chose the Beijing Grand Canal Museum as his first choice.
"Looking at the Grand Canal Museum from a distance, you can see several sail-shaped roofs at different heights, with full curves and full of dynamics." Liu Ming said that the shape of the "Canal Boat" is quite creative.
In the sub-center of Beijing City, each of the three major cultural buildings has an "elegance name" because of its unique design -
The Beijing Grand Canal Museum is also known as the "Boat of the Canal". The design concept is derived from the three elements of boats, sails and water in the ancient canal pictures. The south side of the building looks like a giant sail raised high, while the north side looks like a solid and heavy ship. A picture of a canal.
Beijing City Library is also known as the "Forest Book Garden". It combines the traditional Chinese "Red Seal" image with the new public space design. The high and transparent glass curtain wall integrates nature and architecture. There are two "Book Mountains" in the library. It is grand and stretches, creating the elegance of reading "in the mountains, under the trees, reading diligently".
The Beijing Art Center is also known as the "Cultural Granary". Its creativity comes from the ancient granary of Tongzhou and the ships that transported supplies. It is designed and constructed according to the standards of a world-class first-class theater.
According to reports, the design plans for the three major cultural buildings were generated through domestic and foreign solicitations and were completed jointly by first-class domestic and foreign architectural design teams.
The construction team went through more than 1,400 days and nights of continuous hard work to freeze the busy canal scene thousands of years ago in the form of architecture.
"The three major cultural buildings have unique shapes and complex structures. The processing, construction and installation of components are unprecedentedly difficult, and they have overcome many technical problems in the industry." Director of Major Projects of Beijing Sub-center Investment and Construction Group Co., Ltd. and General Manager of the Project Department of the Three Major Cultural Buildings Chen Hongda said.
The three major cultural buildings not only have beautiful appearance, but also have profound "connotation".
The Beijing Art Center stood out from more than 300 top projects from 35 countries and won the international award in the field of engineering digital construction. Its acoustic effect has been measured to reach the world's top sound quality level; the Beijing City Library has achieved the production and processing of a 16-meter world-class ultra-high glass curtain wall. and installation, a fully automatic mechanical library brings readers a new book borrowing experience; the Beijing Grand Canal Museum has installed 242 isolation supports evenly distributed to protect the safety of buildings and cultural relics... In addition, the three major cultural buildings fully implement the three-star green Building standards have been implemented, and multi-energy complementary energy systems such as ground source heat pumps and photovoltaic power generation have been built, as well as a "sponge city" system for storage and consumption.
Rich and diverse artistic resources
The three major cultural buildings are modern public cultural facilities on the Grand Canal Cultural Belt, where modern civilization and canal culture are integrated and displayed.
Relevant operators are promoting the popularity of art, the fragrance of books, and the vitality of cultural relics, and will build the three major cultural buildings into places where citizens can enjoy high-quality cultural and leisure life.
Create a complex space with diverse functions and forms.
"Every cultural building is not a cultural space with a single function. While doing its 'main business', it also adopts various forms to meet people's new expectations for cultural life." Member of the Party Working Committee of Beijing Deputy Center and Deputy Chairman of the Management Committee Director Hu Jiulong said.
Walking into the Beijing City Library, you are in a knowledge space supported by 144 "gingko trees". The novel scenery of the "valley foyer" is amazing. The stacked stepped structure forms a full reading and book collection space. This building In the 75,000-square-meter building, there are 8 million books, which can be read as you go up the stairs.
The library is not only a coveted palace of knowledge, but also a complex multicultural complex integrating knowledge dissemination, urban think tank, learning sharing and other functions.
Since its opening, the "thousands of reading activities" have been launched one after another, making the museum more and more lively.
Select operators to promote the introduction and sharing of cultural and artistic resources.
The operating units of the Beijing Art Center, Beijing City Library, and Beijing Grand Canal Museum are the National Center for the Performing Arts, Capital Library, and Capital Museum respectively.
The operator has fully mobilized relevant cultural resources and made the three major cultural buildings a popular place for people pursuing high-quality cultural and leisure life as soon as they opened.
When it first opened, the Beijing Art Center announced that there would be 300 high-quality performances in 2024.
Where does the confidence come from?
“It is operated by the National Center for the Performing Arts and its quality is guaranteed,” said a senior theater fan.
According to Guan Jianbo, member of the Party Leadership Group and Vice President of the National Center for the Performing Arts, the Beijing Arts Center will, on the one hand, introduce classic plays from the National Center for the Performing Arts to be performed simultaneously in both places, highlighting the positioning of "high-grade, high-level" programs; On the other hand, artistic categories such as musicals, modern dance, avant-garde drama, and immersive performances are introduced to expand new scenes of performing arts.
Promote the living inheritance and development of culture.
The three major cultural buildings incorporated ingenuity into the construction process and designed transparent planks through which citizens can see part of the ancient canal ruins and other ancient relics.
At the same time, the Beijing Grand Canal Museum has launched a variety of theme activities and more than 500 cultural and creative products in 8 categories, combining the collection of cultural relics, canal culture, inheritance of time-honored brands, intangible cultural heritage and cultural and creative design, and integrating national style and trend into daily life.
Smart, convenient, open and shared
In urban construction, how to make public cultural spaces more convenient and beneficial to the people?
The planning and layout of the three major cultural buildings in the Beijing sub-center gives the answer.
According to Hu Jiulong, on the basis of the urban Green Heart Forest Park, the three major cultural buildings strive to improve the people-friendliness, convenience and practicality of public cultural facilities, innovatively break the inherent model of independent construction of public building clusters in the past, and achieve The innovative model of integrated design and construction of five single buildings including theaters, libraries, museums, shared supporting facilities and reserved rail transit stations, and the construction of "public spaces without walls" to achieve openness and sharing.
The three major cultural buildings, which are "neighbors" to each other, each have special functions and exciting activities. Different cultural resources are gathered here, attracting citizens and tourists like "cultural magnets" to come and visit.
"The three major cultural buildings use new technologies such as Metaverse, cloud interconnection, and 4D viewing to provide citizens with convenient and fast smart experiences," Hu Jiulong said.
Technology empowerment makes cultural experience more convenient.
In the Beijing City Library, the "Wuhan Study Room" gives readers a new experience.
After the reader takes the book out of the bookshelf, the visual inventory system will be triggered to dynamically track the reader and automatically bind the book to the reader's reading column. "If the book is taken out of the reading space, the book will be automatically borrowed." Hu Jiulong said.
Technological innovation brings high-quality culture and art into the public eye.
Entering the elegantly decorated concert hall of the Beijing Art Center, you will see a stage surrounded by auditoriums and a pipe organ.
According to reports, this pipe organ has advanced technology - an electronic bandstand mechanical touch system, which expands the possibilities for the Beijing Art Center to play various types of pipe organ music.
In addition, the three major cultural buildings also provide citizens with "warm" services through detailed designs such as maternal and infant spaces, barrier-free elevators, and free manual scheduled explanation services.
The "Cultural Granary" is home to great shows; the "Forest Book Garden" is the home of knowledge; the "Canal Boat" is setting sail.
The three major cultural buildings are "integrated" in the urban green heart, where citizens can wander here, discover the beauty of nature, appreciate the beauty of architecture, and feel the beauty of culture.
In the near future, this place will become the civic center, vitality center and cultural, leisure and entertainment center of Beijing's sub-center.
(People's Daily reporter Pan Junqiang Shi Fang)