Cai Yuanpei Square and Jiemin Library

The project is located in Yuecheng District, Shaoxing City, adjacent to the national cultural relic protection unit "Cai Yuanpei's Former Residence". This practice aims to commemorate Cai Yuanpei, a famous democratic revolutionary, educator and politician in modern times, and fulfill the responsibility of multiple opening and co-existence with the old town of a public cultural place. Specific projects involve the overall upgrading of Cai Yuanpei Square, the renovation of the Jiemin Theater and the new-built Jiemin Library.

The Hometown Area of Cai Yuanpei shows the typical cultural context and features of the old city. With the advance of time, it has accumulated and evolved benign links and negative breaks. Based on the historical context of dynamic development, architects take a dialectical attitude towards the old Jiemin Theater, lanes, Shaoxing Fifth Hospital, Cai Yuanpei Square and the adjacent Cai Yuanpei's Former Residence within the site. These places are a mixture of objectively existing real present or past. The design uses renovation, reconstruction and new construction to deal with the former Cai Yuanpei Square, the Jiemin Theater, the demolished fifth hospital and other areas, presenting a new urban public cultural complex as a whole, so as to carry forward the spirit of Cai Yuanpei, continue and enhance the urban cultural context and features of the historical district, finally realize the original intention of coordinating the surrounding environment and playing a variety of social functions. The newly built library on the site of Shaoxing Fifth Hospital is the core of the scheme. The design first preserves surrounding lanes to establish a connection with the south square. The east and west passageways are deliberately paved with old stone slabs to suggest the extension and relative authenticity of the texture of the old town area. Due to the height limit, architects try to connect the library horizontally with the former residence. On one side of the water courtyard is the beautiful gable contour of Cai Yuanpei's house, which represents the traditional cultural implication of the Ming and Qing dynasty style. On the other side is a modern library box that interprets the texture and mapping, the pattern of the dark red UHPC panel is derived from the ornamental perforated window of the former residence, and the color is traditional mahogany. The long, highly reflective one-way mirror glass on the first floor outer wall of the library enables the two to realize mutual mapping, vividly demonstrating the dialogue and collision between the new and the old, the past and the present. The design preserves the commemorative feature and civic gathering function of the original Cai Yuanpei Square, the original "L" shaped layout, and the wooden corridor on the south side. In order to make the square more open, the project fine-tunes, integrates and renovates the position of Mr. Cai Yuanpei's bronze statue. The renovation of the theater retains the original architectural space and structural framework, then upgrades the interior functions and remodels the external facade to continue the performance and projection functions.