The Bamboo Pavilion stands at the entrance to a traditional village on the banks of the Baimo River, beside a bamboo sea that stretches across hundreds of thousands of mu of western Sichuan. For millennia the linpan — an organic weave of forest, field, dwelling and water — has been the archetypal settlement form of the Chengdu plain and an expression of the harmonious relationship between land and people. Little wonder the Song-dynasty poet Su Shi declared he would rather eat without meat than live without bamboo.
In Chinese culture bamboo is an emblem of the East — of integrity, resilience, humility and loyalty. When people speak of the charm of a bamboo forest they usually mean its interior: winding paths leading into deep shade. We chose to read the forest from another vantage — the elegant, wave-like undulation of the canopy as it rises and falls with the terrain. Rather than confining the design to bamboo construction and material alone, the pavilion captures the swelling of the bamboo sea in a much broader space: a roof that rolls like the forest itself.
Beneath the sweeping canopy, a 638-square-metre exhibition hall presents the craft, ecology and everyday culture of bamboo. Full-height glazing dissolves the boundary between gallery and grove, and the structure lets the building demonstrate the material it celebrates. Completed in May 2022 for Chengdu Cultural Tourism Group and designed together with Lin Rong Studio of Southwest Jiaotong University, the pavilion has become both gateway and living room for the village at its side.