Hengqin Culture & Art Complex

“The Hengqin Cultural Center is big. It looks big, it feels big, and it is big. At almost a hundred and fifty thousand gross square meters, it is one of many recent buildings that embody China’s ambition to be not only the world’s largest economy, but also a place that does sports, entertainment, and culture in a big way. Standing in the middle of a city that was until less than two decades ago seabed and representing itself in abstractions of form, material, and structure that emphasize both its scale and newness, the Center is one of the most successful such facilities to have recently completed.” — Xu Yun Chao

Designed and built by Atelier Apeiron Architects, this bilingual monograph, featuring interviews, critical texts and lavish diagrams and photography, provides an in-depth examination of the work’s construction process, from conception to completion.

Yunchao Xu, lead architect of Atelier Apeiron, RIBA Chartered Member, AIA Associate Member. Xu received his Master of Science in Advanced Architecture Design from Columbia University in New York City in 2007. Prior to the founding of Atelier Apeiron, he worked with OMA Rotterdam and Rafael Viñoly Architects in the design of world class landmark and award-winning projects, including Qatar Education and the, Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Xu creatively proposed an “Apeironology of Architecture” as his design philosophy in 2017. Through various practices, it gradually became his design inspiration and methodology.

Yunchao Xu’s key works include Hengqin Culture & Art Complex, the Promotion Center at High Tech Park in Baoding, the Gree Global Center, the Kindergarten at Museum Forest, the Jinjiang Campus of Fuzhou University, the Fashion School at Xiamen Polytechnic University, the Tongxin Foreign Language School, the Lotus Terrace Kindergarten, Minzhi School in Shenzhen, the Waterfront Library with Red Brick and White Stone, Red Brick Learning Center, Bamboo Resort Rising from a Paddy Field, Cusha Village Community Center, Small Hill Kindergarten, and The Garden of Forking Paths. Xu and Atelier Apeiron have recently won some important architectural awards,Public Projects Firm of the Year category at the 2022 Architizer A+Awards, Longlist for Emerging Architecture Studio of the Year at the 2022 Dezeen Awards, Finalist in the Rising Star/Emerging Practice of the Year category at the 2020 WAN Awards, Architecture Masterprize at the International Architecture Awards, the World Architecture Festival Awards, The Plan Award, the German Design Awards, the Blueprint Awards, the LEAF Awards, the AR MIPIM Future Projects Awards, the Muse Design Awards, the LIV Hospitality Design Awards, and the NEW YORK Design Awards.

In 2022, the renowned architectural journal l’Arca International Monographs published a monograph of Yunchao Xu/Atelier Apeiron titled Apeironology of Architecture (No.10). In 2020, Xu was invited to show his works at the Exhibition “The City and the World” by the Chicago Athenaeum, together with The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. His projects have been also widely published on ArchDaily, Architizer, World Architecture News, Global Design News, Archiposition, The Plan, IBS AEC and many other outlets.