文字和思想能改变世界

《死亡诗社》

No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.

Dead Poets Society (1989)

徐家汇书院是魔法

Zikawei library: Basilica in library

▼视频，Video

2023年元旦，wutopia lab历经4年设计的徐家汇书院正式开放。它成为上海这两个月最轰动的文化旅游地标。也是第一次在工作室官宣之前就满城尽知的项目。因此，这篇姗姗来迟的工作室官宣作文在某种意义上变成了总结。

With the beginning of 2023, the Zikawei Library, designed by Wutopia Lab for four years, was officially opened. Coming to be the most sensational cultural landmark in Shanghai, it was also the first time that the project was known to the whole city before the official announcement from the studio. Now, this article is more like a summary instead of its unveiling.

▼项目概览，Overall view

我接手这个项目的时候，还不是徐家汇书院。戴卫·奇普菲尔德事务所完成的是一个书店的设计。后来书店退出，这个建筑在完成外立面和土建后便空置。在经历了第二家书店的退出后，这栋建筑才被确定作为徐汇区图书馆新址并命名为徐家汇书院。

Before it became the Zikawei Library, the building was designed as a bookstore by David Chipperfield Architects. Unfortunately, just after the facade and the structure of the building were completed, the building was left vacant. After two investments of the bookstore had bowed out, this building was eventually designated to be the public library in Zikawei District and named the Zikawei Library.

▼建筑外观和周围环境，Exterior view and the context

Wutopia lab的魔法

Wutopia Lab’s Magic

作为建筑师的Wutopia lab有自己的室内设计原则。从不在原有的空间上涂脂抹粉。我们总是用基于项目特点发展出一种新的空间叙事结构植入或者消弭原来的建筑结构，从而创造出一种被称为魔幻现实主义的新的体验。

Wutopia lab, as an architectural firm, wants to do interior design from a different perspective. Rather than putting makeup on the original structure, we develop a new spatial narrative based on the characteristics of the project to implant or dissolve the original architecture, thus creating a nouveau experience known as magical realism.

▼主立面，Main facade

不过大卫留下了三层通高并两侧有夹层的中庭。这个古典气质的中庭占据着中轴线的中心位置，无法回避。我需要避免被它诱导去建立一个古典的叙事结构，也不能无视它而完全建立一个新的叙事结构。

Robert Macfarlane在他的《Underland: A Deep Time Journey》一书中观察到“核反应堆铀废料的掩埋：人们把废弃铀芯块封在锆棒里，锆棒封在铜柱里，铜柱封在铁缸里，铁缸包裹在膨润土浆里，最后将它们存储在地下深处的岩层里，放入数千英尺深的片麻岩、花岗岩或岩盐之中。“这似乎是人类社会收藏重要物品的普遍程序。这就是层层嵌套的“中国套盒”式结构。“中国套盒”激发了我的灵感。

The original building has a three-story atrium with a mezzanine on both sides. This classical atrium occupies the center of the central axis. We want to avoid this classical-centered narrative, nor do we want to completely neglect it.

In his book Underland: A Deep Time Journey, Robert Macfarlane observes that the burial of uranium waste from nuclear reactors: people seal the spent uranium cores in zirconium rods in copper columns, which are embeded in iron cylinders, at the same time, iron cylinders encased in bentonite slurry, and finally store them deep underground in rock formations, thousands of feet deep in gneiss, granite, or rock salt. This seems to be a common procedure in human societies to preserve important objects. This is the structure of the “Chinese boxes within boxes” with its nested layers, which inspires me to implement the classical centered order as well as create a new narrative.

▼具有古典气质的三层通高中庭，The classical, three-story atrium