Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
Jiangnan House Yangzhou Guangling
From above, the stark white sloped roof of Jiangnan House’s central structure pops amid the grey tile roofs of Guangling Road, Yangzhou’s ancient neighbourhood. At street level, the facade’s visual connection to the area fully emerges: The former home of the Subei Cinema — now a hotel — is grounded by brick and concrete walls that match the adjacent buildings.
B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio and AESEU led a transformative renewal of the 40-room complex with a clear mandate to preserve as many of the original structures as possible. The cinema’s exterior, already a modern touchpoint in conversation with the surrounding history, was left intact. Inside, its double-height screening room became an exhibition space, and the team built a lobby around it that hints at the movie house’s heyday with vintage-inspired metal fittings, recessed lighting, terrazzo floors and cinematic scenes on woodblock prints designed by local artists.
A central tree pond anchors the lobby, from which corridors modelled on the layout of a classical Chinese garden extend in multiple directions. Beyond the building, curved pathways and cloistered historic courtyards extend the tranquil garden motif. Two new buildings read as pavilions with their sloped, projecting roofs. In one, guest rooms form cantilevered viewing platforms over the complex below. In the other, a sauna and spa employ foldable facades that, when open, blur the boundary between indoors and out.
The architecture’s material palette is reminiscent of a lush botanical garden. Recycled brick ties the new construction to the historic courtyard walls, and concrete cast in bamboo-lined moulds brings the texture of the surrounding landscape onto the buildings’ surfaces. Hand-carved stone, aged elm, sawtooth wood and distressed copper complete the vocabulary assembled from Yangzhou’s origins as a fortress turned merchant city.
Team: Shuhei Aoyama, Yoko Fujii, Lingzi Liu, Suyun Li, Ziwei Zhou, Jingyuan Li, Xinrui Zhao, Jiahui Wang and Jingyu Yan (B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio); Urban Architecture Lab at Architecture and Engineering Co., Ltd. of Southeast University (AESEU)
