2024 - SHADOWS OF THE PAST

Palace of the King of Shu was founded in 1385 during the Ming Dynasty., namely the ”old imperial city” in the mouth of Chengdu citizens, was originally located in the center of Chengdu. The whole layout of Chengdu was closely spread around the imperial city. The imperial city has always been the heart and soul of Chengdu, a symbol of the history and cultural heritage of the city. However, after 1950, with the renovation of municipal facilities, roads and various movements, all the surface remains of the Shu palace were demolished in modern urban operations.

Today, Chengdu has disappeared from its once central soul, replaced by row upon row of high-rise buildings. Our project aims to recast the soul of the Shu palace using modern components, sun and solar energy. We hope to remind every visitor who arrived in Chengdu that there was once a complex comparable to the Imperial Palace Museum, but it disappeared in the changing times. Through this installation, we also hope to arouse people to think deeply about the protection of cultural relics.

Our device consists of a square tubular components with a built-in luminous filament and a photovoltaic solar panel arranged on the roof. The square tubular components have a special coating inside, which is metallic during the day, and at night it can emit a soft light, as if telling the story of its former glory.

The construction idea of the whole device is to ”complete the broken ancient buildings”. It does not pursue the restoration of the shape, but creates the different degree of density inside the device through the change of the length of the internal square tubular components and the spacing between the square tubular components, and creates a gradually dissipated atmosphere. Such a design hopes to arouse people’s memory of the dissipated palace of Shu, so that people can feel the thick history and the regret of loss. In this way, we hope to let more people pay attention to the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, so that the memory of history can be continued.

The image of our project represent shu palace past and this life, the image of the left shows our project device completion dilapidated ancient buildings in shu palace once showed the effect of the location, the right of the image hope to restore shu palace building once style, we hope that through the strong picture of ancient and modern contrast caused the resonance of people.
Project location: Chengdu is one of the first famous national historical and cultural cities in China. It is an important birthplace of ancient Shu civilization and the center of the ”Land of abundance”. It has the historical characteristics of 3000 years and the city name of 2500 years.
Chengdu city, the capital of Sichuan Province, is located in the southwest of China, the western Sichuan Basin, the eastern margin of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and the hinterland of the Chengdu Plain. Its climate type is a subtropical monsoon climate.