China is a nation undergoing rapid economic growth and modernization.
The Great Wall is a symbol of the country s millennia-old history and heritage. One doesn t expect to encounter these two very different worlds in the same place. Yet just a few hundred meters from the Great Wall is one of the country s most recent, and most ambitious, architectural projects: an unusual luxury hotel called the Commune by the Great Wall.
Past the polluted suburbs of Beijing, a few kilometers from a small peasant village, a large black gate with a red star marks the entrance to the Commune, with a red star marks the entrance to the Commune, an eight square kilometer enclave housing II villas and a clubhouse. The Commune is less like a hotel than a museum of contemporary architecture.
Twelve young Asian architects, all prominent in their home countries, were asked to design a villa in a style of their own choosing. They worked with few limitations other than the stipulation that the architecture must be integrated into its natural surroundings and use local materials and skills.
Each villa has four bedrooms and bathrooms, a living room, a dining room and a fully equipped kitchen. Each one has its own distinctive style inside and out. From the trapdoors in the floor that lead to the bedrooms and bathrooms of Suitcase House to the all-bamboo walls of Furniture House, the architects have blended originality and avant-grade design with a luxury hotel s standards of comfort and convenience.
Bamboo Wall, by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, is perhaps the most surprising of the villas, with its structure molded to the contours of the site, its bamboo facade and its half-outdoor living room. All of the villas command a panoramic view of the Great Wall, which is only a ten-minute walk away. At the end of a sinuous path through the trees lies an unrestored section of the wall.
Here one can comprehend the immensity of this ancient rampart, and in particular its length, as it disappears behind a mountain only to reappear on successive distant hillsides. This is the reflection of the past, just as the Commune its name notwithstanding is the harbinger of the future.
