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Guardian Art Center and PuXuan Hotel

Beijing, China
Architect
Buro Ole Scheeren / BIAD

The Guardian Art Center is a 600,000 ft2 (56,000m2) mixed-use cultural center embedded in the cultural and historic fabric of central Beijing just north of the Forbidden City. Principally divided into upper and lower halves, the lower section is dedicated to an art auction hall, gallery, and event space while the upper portions integrate several restaurants and a 120 room boutique hotel.
This separation of functions and context is expressed both in the buildings form and material treatment. The lower floor’s pixilated volumes inscribe the building into the surrounding context. These volumes are clad in dark basalt panels with thousands of inset circular openings derived from one of China’s most important historic landscape paintings, “Dwelling in the Funchun Mountains.” The upper hotels floors are conversely composed of a floating, monolithic ring clad with oversized bricks of insulated glazing, a reference to the adjacent hutongs and courtyard houses.

Simon Dong
Simon Dong
Simon Dong
Patrick Deveau/Front
Patrick Deveau/Front
Patrick Deveau/Front
Simon Dong
Simon Dong

The Guardian Art Center is a 600,000 ft2 (56,000m2) mixed-use cultural center embedded in the cultural and historic fabric of central Beijing just north of the Forbidden City. Principally divided into upper and lower halves, the lower section is dedicated to an art auction hall, gallery, and event space while the upper portions integrate several restaurants and a 120 room boutique hotel.
This separation of functions and context is expressed both in the buildings form and material treatment. The lower floor’s pixilated volumes inscribe the building into the surrounding context. These volumes are clad in dark basalt panels with thousands of inset circular openings derived from one of China’s most important historic landscape paintings, “Dwelling in the Funchun Mountains.” The upper hotels floors are conversely composed of a floating, monolithic ring clad with oversized bricks of insulated glazing, a reference to the adjacent hutongs and courtyard houses.

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