West Shanghai Workers’ Cultural Palace

Project Details

Project Description

FROM THE ARCHITECTS:

Built in 1959, the original West Shanghai Worker’s Cultural Palace occupies a predominate site in the centre of Shanghai. Serving the union workers and local community as a popular cultural activity centre for the last five decades, the Palace could no longer cater for the growing urban population.

Schmidt Hammer Lassen architects’ scheme preserves and expands an existing park on the site. The design expands and transforms the park into an inviting 6-hectare public space around a central lake. Four multi-functional towers are placed along the lakeside sitting on an interlinked plinth of cultural functions.

At lower levels, cultural and activity functions include a performance theatre, a training and education center plus art and exhibition spaces, all designed as open and transparent spaces. Public will have easy access to these facilities from the park and the main street. The higher levels in the towers will provide space for multi-functional cultural activities & house commercial offices. The building is also connected at basement levels, with transport links to two new subway stations, retail space and indoor sports facilities, including a sports hall and ice rink. Outdoor sports functions are spread around the park, creating a diverse and active urban public space for the local community. 

“This project is all about people” explains Chris Hardie, partner at Schmidt Hammer Lassen. “At the beginning of the project we spent a lot of time on the existing site observing how the community and public used the park spaces around the lake. It became obvious how loved this amenity within the heart of the city was. At the same time we realised there wasn’t another large scale park in the area – the nearest being 5 km away. From this point onwards our focus became how to maximise the amount of open public park from 1 hectare to around 6 hectares on an overall 8 hectare site – whilst creating a new cultural destination of over 80,000m2. Our proposal deals with this whilst proposing a series of covered and open spaces at street and park level.” 

The West Shanghai Workers’ Cultural Palace is just one of many major projects currently being designed by Schmidt Hammer lLssen architects in China. In Shanghai, the studio is working together with the Dream Center client developing 3 landmark culture buildings in the West Bund area, a new 25,000m² district Performance Arts Centre in the same area, and a headquarter development for the Shanghai Development Bank at the former Expo site.

Last year, Schmidt Hammer Lassen architects’ 30,000m² New Library in Ningbo broke ground. In 2016, the studio's 123,000m² headquarter design for Ningbo Daily Newspaper Group and 100,000m² multi-functional cultural facility Ningbo Home of Staff will also be completed.