CHINESE CULTURAL CENTRE OR PURPLE TEAPOT?
21 May 2014
China’s newest attraction is a cultural centre resembling a teapot, and features the world’s first indoor children’s theme park.
Located on the border of the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake in China, the Wuxi Wanda Cultural City Exhibition Centre looks more like a purple teapot than a cultural centre.
Designed to reference local customs, the centre’s form is based on a traditional yixing clay teapot, which originated from the eastern province of Jiangsu during the 15th century.
The structure measures 38 meters high, 50 metres in diameter and a gross floor area of 5,000 square meters and its main materials are aluminium sheets and differently sized panels of glazing, with stained-glass used for the central curvature.
The round volume consists of block components that can rotate into different positions.
Inside the Exhibition Centre is the world’s first indoor children’s theme park which features a number of interactive children’s areas such as a micro roller coaster, ferris wheel, and water park.
The Exhibition Centre is part of the larger Wuxi Wanda Cultural Tourism City, which offers an entertainment park to rival Disneyland. The Wuxi Wanda Cultural Tourism City will integrate cultural, tourism, commercial and hotel functions into one mixed-use development.
The world-class design is scheduled to open in 2017 and is set to create more than 30,000 jobs and bring in over 20 million visitors annually, while generating 5 billion yuan in sales revenues.
