Upside-down concrete pyramid in China a concert hall that’s one of a kind – open to the skies and designed to minimise its impact on nature
- The Chapel of Sound, built in an area of outstanding national beauty near the Great Wall of China, seats 150 in a space that feels primitive
- It is possibly the most extraordinary work yet by Huang Wenjing and Li Hu of Beijing-based OPEN Architecture, known for pushing the envelope with projects
In a wooded valley in the Jinshanling mountains, in China’s Hebei province, some 150km from Beijing by road, a new shape rises from the ground.
It is dark and spreads upwards and outwards like smoke, yet it is solid like rock, stratified and flat-topped. It has large openings, and as you approach it, you may hear music coming from them.
This is the Chapel of Sound, an open-air concert venue that officially opens in April. It is the latest and perhaps most extraordinary building yet by Beijing-based OPEN Architecture, founded by Huang Wenjing and Li Hu.
Li says: “We built an upside-down pyramid of concrete.” That’s because, Huang says, “We wanted the building to land with the smallest possible footprint”.
Huang and Li were based in New York for a decade, studying and later working with top international architecture offices there, Li with Steven Holl and Huang with Pei Cobb Freeman. In 2008, they established an office for OPEN Architecture in Beijing, and repurposed a warehouse into a cultural events centre called Studio X.