. . . . . BAITAcinema . . . . .
The BAITAcinema is an ephemeral activation of a small courtyard located in the historical Baitasi district in Beijing. Realized for the Beijing Design Week 2016, the temporary installation was the first step of a longer-term project that BaO architects was undertaking on this site to transform the courtyard into a permanent cultural space for collective and shared actions.
The core gesture of the project was the construction of a wooden amphitheater within the existing layout of the house. Invading both outdoors and indoors, the installation deliberately provokes its vernacular host and creates accidental events between the new and the old. It opens up a new range of experiences, usages, postures and potentials in a space that was previously considered a straightforward traditional residential space.
In essence, the amphitheater proposed to create a space that is traditionally associated with public life, community space, and civic gathering, within a setting that epitomizes domesticity and the intimacy of the Chinese family life. This cadavre exquis approach triggers an optimistic and progressive outlook on the opportunities of Beijing’s Hutongs’ renewal. It is uninhibited in its design, celebrates the possibilities of smallness, and is bold in its attitude towards history. It tries to break away from conventional and somewhat too consensual approaches to historical districts regeneration that are too often associated with cultural pride and nostalgia.
The project and its associated “open-door policy” created a ambiguity between public and private space, civicness and intimacy. The installation, although temporary in nature, was intended as a way to signal and start a debate on the coming creation of a public-oriented program in this very site. It was designed as an open cultural platform, a flexible artifact, an infrastructure that enables gatherings and celebrates collective actions.
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