Oversea Chinese Merchant Building Interior Revitalization

The elegant and tranquil Oversea Chinese Merchant Building is located on Pearl Road in Yuexiu District of Guangzhou. For over a century, the arcade building interweaves Chinese and Western elements and carries the oversea merchant culture in the modern history of Guangzhou’s urban development. With the aim of making the Merchant Building the representative of Guangzhou’s urban culture, Guangdong Harbor Real Estate Development led the renovation of this Republican building. Win-Win Design takes up the building’s soft decoration for its revitalization.

The designer began with “history is the trigger point of spatial experience,” then collected elements from slices of traditional Cantonese life, and seized artistic symbols from the explicit forms of oversea Chinese merchant culture. Based on thorough understanding of urban spirits, she modeled the interactive scenes from daily perspectives and insights, and through the design, realized artistic integration of the new and the old, the Chinese and the Western. Therefore, the revitalized space is not only a peaceful reading space , but also a communion space to have artistic dialogues and spiritual resonances. Here, style is toned with poetic charm, culture interweaved with art, and daily life resonated with spiritual ideal. Altogether these elements awaken the precious memories of generations of Cantonese people.

The century-old arcade building remained with integrity. The Oversea Chinese Merchant Building carries not only the affections and mentality of oversea Chinese, but also the local culture and civilian attachments of Cantonese people. The designer deconstructed the magnificent building which mixed exotic styles, keeping the most classic symbols and turning them into artistic spatial decorations through contemporary craft aesthetics: display articles, utensils, cabinets and wall paintings… The variety in forms unfolds the pleasant past moments of Cantonese daily life.