Tsingpu Retreat — Yangzhou, China
![Decorative pool at Tsingpu Retreat, Yangzhou](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/sXHhic2PvyrkGLbyhNRXXZ-415-80.jpg)
The impression of modern China tends to be a little skewed by the steely, impersonal landscape of skyscrapers in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai. How refreshing it is then that designers and architects like Neri&Hu Design and Research Office are showing how it’s possible to conceive a contemporary Chinese vernacular that looks and feels thoroughly of its time and place.
For the 20-room Tsingpu, the Shanghai-based practice overlaid the original footprint of a neglected warehouse near Yangzhou’s Slender West Lake with a calm grid of low-slung grey-bricked pavilions, courtyards and internal decorative pools that call to mind, without any hint of cliché, traditional hutong houses.
The rooms are calm oases lined with terrazzo, white oak, walnut and steel, and dressed with furniture and lighting designed by Neri&Hu specially for this project. This sense of peace is accented by the public spaces – including an art gallery, theatre and tea house – that are framed by broad timber overhangs that catch the light and slivers of sky.
INFORMATION
Website
ADDRESS
1 Baocheng Road Hanjiang District Yangzhou
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Daven Wu is the Singapore Editor at Wallpaper*. A former corporate lawyer, he has been covering Singapore and the neighbouring South-East Asian region since 1999, writing extensively about architecture, design, and travel for both the magazine and website. He is also the City Editor for the Phaidon Wallpaper* City Guide to Singapore.
-
Take off: Mathieu Lehanneur's Olympic Cauldron rises into the Parisian night sky
The Paris 2024 Olympics’ opening ceremony was closed with a soaring cauldron spectacle that will go down in history
By Hugo Macdonald Published
-
Phaidon’s new Graphic Classics is a lavish greatest hits of graphic design
Graphic Classics is a compendium of seven centuries of visual culture, from the everyday and ephemeral to visionary works that reshaped our world
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Birley Chocolate hits the sweet ’n’ chic spot in London’s Chelsea
The new Birley Chocolate shop, a sibling to Birley Bakery, is a confection of colour as delicious as its finely crafted goods
By Melina Keays Published
-
Inside Palazzo Versace Macau, a lavish, mosaic-rich hotel
Palazzo Versace Macau, the brand’s first hotel in Asia, continues to preserve Donatella Versace’s swanky hospitality vision
By Sofia de la Cruz Published
-
Villa One at the One & Only Palmilla — Los Cabos, Mexico
By Chadner Navarro Published
-
West Kowloon wonders to discover now
Cultural and culinary adventures, extraordinary spaces and outstanding experiences in West Kowloon, Hong Kong
By Simon Mills Last updated
-
Ramshackle farmhouse in China's Hubei province gets a slick makeover
The reimagined farmhouse is now a contemporary bolthole
By Lauren Ho Last updated
-
Martim — Wroclaw, Poland
By Daven Wu Last updated
-
Tattersalls Hotel — Armidale, Australia
By Dimity Noble Last updated
-
KLoé Hotel — Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
By Jennifer Choo Last updated
-
Beast x Gubi House — Shanghai, China
By Cat Nelson Last updated