Reinvent He Lou Pavilion: breathing new life into 'renewing the ancient'

He Lou Pavilion is a teahouse made of bamboo and thatch and located in a corner of Fangta Park in Songjiang.

The pavilion is still the best piece of Chinese architecture, according to Pritzker Prize winner Wang Shu.

Fangta Park, which dates back to the 1980s, was added to Shanghai's municipal cultural heritage list in 2014. It underwent a significant restoration last year after withstanding the test of time for three decades.

This summer, just like they did a century ago, individuals of all ages have resumed activities in this fairly typical gazebo, whether they are conversing or sipping tea.

He Lou Pavilion: more than a tea place

The Shanghai government commissioned renowned architect Feng Jizhong to design Fangta Park in the 1980s. Feng was frequently compared with the illustrious Liang Sicheng as "North Liang, South Feng."

Feng was born in 1915 into a scholarly family and had his early education at a traditional Chinese private school, which provided him with a solid foundation in Chinese culture. Then he studied civil engineering at St. John's University in Shanghai, where he shared a class with the renowned architect I M Pei. He later traveled to Austria to study at the Vienna University of Technology, where he received degrees as an architect and chartered engineer.

Feng returned to China and spent many years as the head of Tongji University's Architecture Department. He also established China's first urban planning and landscape architecture programs. Today, Feng is acknowledged as a master and pioneer of modern Chinese architecture. However, his life was full of challenges. His final project, Fangta Park, maybe the only one in which he was able to fully express his views without compromising.

According to Feng's writings, visitors typically feel exhausted after strolling around Fangta Park, and when they get to the He Lou Pavilion, it's the ideal spot for "resting after movement."

With the project's budget exhausted, Feng opted to create the pavilion from local materials, dubbing it "He Lou Pavilion" to emphasize its humble construction. The pavilion has a thatched roof, inspired by the curved and upturned eaves he saw on rural farmhouses in Songjiang and Jiaxing.

The huge thatched roof is supported by bamboo. In ancient times, it would have been practically difficult to sustain a big roof of about 200 square meters with only thin bamboo. Feng employed sophisticated architectural mechanics, allowing bamboo to withstand such weight.

From a distance, the materials of the He Lou Pavilion appear natural and inspire an air of timeless beauty, reminiscent of a traditional Chinese thatched house. But up close, one can see that the slender bamboo poles are supporting a massive dome, demonstrating the expert application of modern methods.

Bamboo decays easily, so each bamboo pole has a "horseshoe" at the base that is placed into the ground. The bamboo joints also hold significance. In architectural design, joints are typically highlighted to give the building a sense of stability.

But Feng did the opposite: he painted the bamboo joints black and the middle parts white. This caused the black areas to fade into the background, while the white sections stood out, making the bamboo segments appear to disconnect, float and dance in the dim space under the ceiling. This keeps the huge roof from being oppressive.

"This is the ingenious use of Su Dongpo's (a Song Dynasty poet) concept of 'finding interest in the unusual,'" Feng said.

Throughout the Fangta Park, he intended to highlight the Song Dynasty (960-1279)'s charm. Though few Song-era gardens survive, Feng did not believe in mimicking or replicating the past; instead, he employed modern architectural techniques and vocabulary to capture the spirit of Song gardens.

"When I began to design He Lou Pavilion, I left aside the traditional approach and focused fully on the 'modern,'" Feng remarked. "This 'modern' is more than just developing a new aesthetic; it is essentially my expression. How can I explain this? I chose the concept of He Lou Pavilion to show individualism; each element stands alone, with no clear order."

Individual elements include the purposefully unenclosed curved walls. Each wall of the pavilion serves a specific role, such as retaining soil, providing a screen, regulating movement, letting light pass through, defining views, or expanding space. Each has its axis, radius and height, resulting in a design that appears fractured yet is subtly connected.

Feng even examined how individuals sitting inside the He Lou Pavilion, sipping tea and relaxing, would perceive time and space. He painstakingly analyzed the changes over the four seasons, as well as the differences within a single day, in this small space.

This is reflected in the sunshine that glides slowly down the curved walls from daylight to sunset. It's also evident in the pavilion's functional beauty, where the walls provide shade in the summer and block wind in the winter.

The pavilion expresses the essence of Song Dynasty gardens, namely the nuanced sense of space and the interplay of movement and stillness, using modern technology and vocabulary.

"Each component is independent, complete and unique in character, appearing modest and self-contained, unrelated to the others, and casually scattered. However, in actuality, they are painstakingly organized, intimately interwoven and mutually beneficial," Feng remarked.

This is Feng's interpretation of "renewing the ancient."

The restoration: Reviving more than just a structure

Bamboo and straw aren't durable materials. If used for the main structure, they could easily collapse within a few months or years. Yet, over the past 30 years, He Lou Pavilion has withstood harsh weather, including countless typhoons in Shanghai and extreme conditions described as "once in a century," all without damage.

However, the straw had worn thin, and some parts had weathered over time. In 2021, it finally underwent major restoration. Professor Huang Yiru, a student of Feng at Tongji University, led the restoration. The restoration process took two years, whereas the construction of the pavilion only took four months.

Huang aimed to maintain the pavilion's lively character, echoing the spirit of Song Dynasty gardens, modern sentiments and Feng's unique style.

For instance, to emphasize the play of light and shadow on a curved wall, the team reduced the amount of plant life around it.

Feng valued a balance between spontaneity and precise design. He was never satisfied with the original straw roof, thinking it was too thin, and preferred a thicker thatch.

Today, the restoration team considered various thatching materials, including European and Chinese varieties, and chose a type of thatch that wasn't as stiff as the European kind but was thick enough to match the bamboo structure. However, increasing the roof's thatch thickness to 30cm necessitated adjusting the structure and proportions.

The bamboo, which supports the He Lou Pavilion like modern load-bearing columns, was also crucial. To ensure proper roof support, the restoration team modeled the bamboo structure on a computer, simulating and calculating the load each column would bear.

Initially, based on their computer simulations and thoughts about the relatively light thatched roof, the restoration team considered a more rigid, modern approach for the bamboo structure. However, several experts advised keeping the original flexible method. "The original He Lou Pavilion, built without precise calculations, has stood for over 30 years without collapsing. That speaks for itself," one of them argued. Although the bamboo structure remained intact, what happened to the painted bamboo joints?

"I told the workers to paint 15 cm below the joints, and they did exactly that - 15 cm, perfectly straight. But it lacked the natural, uneven look we wanted," said Huang. Fortunately, they tied the bamboo joints with metal wire, which naturally varied in height. So they decided to use the tie points as a guide, and the repainting finally achieved the desired "spontaneous" effect.

This restoration also included some improvements.

For instance, Feng originally intended the eaves to be open, but he later sealed them because rainwater would easily blow inside. However, sealing them harmed the structure because the wind could lift the roof from underneath, causing it to shake or tilt. After careful consideration, the restoration team designed a double-layer structure that allows wind and light to enter but keeps rain out.

There was also the issue of gaps around the column bases. To prevent visitors from dropping cigarette butts into the gaps, they used breathable stainless steel mesh to cover them. Additionally, the technical team treated some of the old materials to remove salt and alkali, preserving as much of the original brickwork as possible while extending its lifespan.

The most challenging part wasn't restoring the original features but adding new ones.

Opposite the thatched pavilion, Feng had originally planned to build another small pavilion, a cozy spot to enjoy tea and scenery in the winter, which he called the "Peng Xue Zhai (a place for brewing snow)." Feng later stated that even without the pavilion, he should still add some walls to extend the space from the thatched pavilion across the water.

During this restoration, Huang wanted to fulfill his teacher's unfinished vision. Since these walls had no design drawings, they had to decide where, how long, tall and wide to put them on site.

"We had to design it right there," Huang said. He stood by the water, directing workers to position bamboo poles, using their eyes, feet and sense of space to determine the final look.

In response to requests to open the pavilion at night, inconspicuous lighting was also installed during the restoration process, allowing visitors to enjoy the panorama after dark.