According to Records of the Historian, Confucius was born in Changping Township, Zouyi in the State of Lu, and his ancestors migrated from the Song state to the Lu state.
Zouyi in Records of the Historian is Luyuan Village of Qufu City, Shandong Province today on the basis of field investigation. The village is north of Mount Changping and south of Mount Ni. The well-known river Yishui River flows westward at the foot of Mount Changping.
The tourist center of Confucius’s home village is at the end of Luyuan Village and on the north side of Mount Ni, covering an area of 5,000 square metre.
Reverence toward history and respect for environment are the starting point of our design. Mount Ni is endowed with the fine spirits of the universe, and our landscape designer Mr. Zhuang suggests that “It's inadvisable to change the mountain.” We have tried our best to bring Mount Ni beside the buildings and Mount Changping into the environment we create, and incorporate the buildings into Mount Ni. We have always been devoting ourselves to blend buildings with mountains.
The artistic dialogue between human and nature in a subjective manner is the quintessence of Chinese culture. We, therefore, lay emphasis on the corridors of sight line between buildings versus the summit of Mount Ni and the buildings versus Mount Changping in design. In a bid to pay tribute to nature to the fullest, a square at the building’s entrance is formed at the intersection between lines of sight, thereby forming two axis nets.
According to The Thousand Character Essay, “The empty valleys broadly resonate, in hallow halls wisely officiate.” The kernel Chinese architecture is open voids rather than solid mass. All functions are around a gorgeous courtyard, and a landscape tower where visitors can witness Confucius’s birthplace is constructed in the courtyard in the direction of Mount Changping. We have drawn lessons from traditional distribution of corridors and halls in terms of the spatial distribution of architecture and take the three functional spaces (Ticket Hall, Exhibition Hall and Leisure Hall) as the main hall, which not only retains the cream of traditional space construction but also gets rid of the rigid layout in the traditional hierarchy.
These three functional spaces have been arranged in terms of their line-of-sight relationship with Mount Ni and Mount Changping. One can look the main peak of Mount Ni in the distance through the atrium from “Ticket Hall”; only in the direction of Mount Changpibg, are large french windows, with which outdoor landscape and Mount Changping forms a memorable site, mounted in “Exhibition Hall”; “Leisure Hall” is open to the patio, so tourists are able to look Mount Changping in the distance in the courtyard.
We are loath to give prominence to the image of architecture in the process of design so as to make the building, environment and interior fuse together. Hence visitors, modest and quiet, will be able to indulge in Confucius’s home village. Confucius said, “When one’s inner disposition is in excess of his outward grace, he will look uncultured; when one’s outward grace is in excess of his inner disposition he will seem to be superficial. Only when his inner disposition and outward grace are in balance can he be a man of virtue.” (The Analects) Accordingly, local stone and rammed earth have been applied in the building, environment and interior, and the spatial concept of “corridors” and “halls” has been continued by installing spacious wooden screens outside the building and decorating the interior with wooden ornament. The application of simplicity and delicacy is to achieve a balance between “Form” and “Content”.
Both nature and history reflect superiority, which is the foundation of Chinese culture and entirely different from “the architecture-oriented theory” of modern architecture. We consider ourselves lucky to work together with so many wise persons. The collective wisdom has linked human beings to history and nature, and “a natural place”, which blends into environment, is with a historical charm and meet the demand of current people, comes into being. It focuses not only on the exploration of new architecture, but also on the reconstruction of the once-poetic world.
