Vienna and Beijing Design collective Penda has designed the Hongkung Art Gallery and Art Arcadion, with a sequence of arches. The 2000 sqm space is located on the outskirts of the city.

The project provided a new reception area where curved openings of different sizes guide visitors through to the existing exhibition rooms. The project only took 38 days from the first sketch to its opening for the public.

The curves begin at the building's entrance and continue around the space to create arches of different sizes and alternating orientations.
 

Located on the southern 3rd ring road in Beijing, the white exterior of the Hongkun Art Gallery works a sculptural focal point for the area. Entering the gallery through an opening in the  monolithic facade, the arch like curves continue to the interior and gently merge into a clean white space for exhibiting the artworks.

The open areas in the gallery offer a wide space for themed exhibition, while the gently curved entrance part draws people into the space and guides them naturally further into the gallery.

The solid expression of the exterior continually merges with a carved out interior and increases the sculptural appearance of the gallery. Multiple arches altering in size and orientation create a continuous, gentle curve which becomes a sculptural interpretation of the landscape paintings, that are exhibited in the gallery.

Within the arches, the entrance sculpture inhabits an information desk, a coatroom and the main circulation staircase, which guides visitors to the basement with a special exhibition hall and employees to the office area located on the mezzanine level.

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Architects
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Penda China. Dayong Sun and Chris Precht.
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Area
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2,000 sqm.
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Dates
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2013.
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Location Localización
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Beijing, China.
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Photography
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Xia Zhi.
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Penda China. Founded in 2013 and led by Sun Dayong and Wan Shuyan, Penda China is a Beijing-based studio that embraces innovative design. With the international exposure it has gained, the studio is a stickler for ‘LESS IS LOVE’ from an ecological standpoint. They strive to establish an agreeable rapport between individuals and their surroundings while capturing the zeitgeist of art, fashion, and architecture. Their multidisciplinary practice covers a wide spectrum from architecture, and landscape to interiors, installation art and such, and a variety of functions including culture, residence, hotel, office, transportation, business, and exhibition. Their clients include BMW, MINI (CN), Volkswagen, Vanke, Qihao, China Merchants Property, Kaisa, Wanhua Real Estate, and many other famous brands at home and abroad.

Their fashionable, green and innovative designs have garnered us many honors and extended actual influence within a worldwide scene. Hongkun Art Gallery (alternatively known as ‘Hongkun Museum of Fine Arts’), one of our projects, was selected to be one of the ten most popular art galleries in Beijing by Time Out. They were shortlisted four times as one of the most influential Chinese designers by the prestigious Architectural Digest AD100; won the Architizer A+ Award for Emerging Firm of the Year (2016); invited to be one of the ten architects to the 1st House Vision 2018 Beijing Exhibition curated by Kenya Hara, shortlisted for Dezeen Awards 2021 emerging architecture studio of the year. The studio founder was also invited to sit on the jury panel for the international competitions such as eVolo, making a voice internationally for Chinese architects; and elected to be Person of the Year and Architect of the Year by the renowned magazine's TRENDS HOME, Robb Report Lifestyle, etc.

Penda China has won numerous awards at home and abroad. The founder Sun Dayong won the First Prize for the Excellent Graduation Design of graduates in the School of Architecture, Central Academy of Fine Arts. Some representative award-winning projects are: Hongkun Art Gallery awarded the Outstanding Public Space of the Golden Bund Award (2014), Home Café awarded the Best Dining Space Design of JINTANG PRIZE (2015), Toby’s Home awarded the Best Leisure and Entertainment Space Design of JINTANG PRIZE (2015), Snow Apartment awarded the Best Residential Interior Design of Architizer A+ Awards (2015); Toby’s Home awarded the Gold Award of A' Design Award & Competition (2016); Rising Canes Pavilion awarded the Silver Award of A' Design Award & Competition (2016), Haikou Wenming East Road Tunnel awarded the World Design Awards (2021), gold award of Global Future Design Awards, The Plan Awards, and nominated for Iconic Awards and Wallpaper* Design Award (Best Infrastructure), etc.

Their design works have been included in numerous exhibitions at home and abroad, including the Start of a Long Journey Outstanding Works by Graduates of 2012 from Key Art Academies in China held in CAFA Art Museum; AIT International Young Architects Design Exchange Exhibition (2012); “ZAO – Architecture of China” in Lyons, France ( 2014); Architecture China 1000, Beijing, China (2015); “10×100 – An Exhibition of 100 Architects” on the 10th Anniversary of UED (2015); Rising Canes Pavilion in Beijing Design Week (2015); “Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture” in Shenzhen, China (2015); “Walking Box” of Salone del Mobile (2016); Landscape City Reconstructing Utopia--Architecture and Art Exhibition in Shanghai Himalaya Art Museum (2016); MINI 60 Anniversary, Shanghai (2017); China House Vision, Beijing, China (2018); Urban Co-Habitation in SUPER FUSION 2021 Chengdu Biennale, etc.

Meanwhile, those projects have featured globally acclaimed media, such as METALOCUS, Dezeen, Archdaily, Designboom, Domus, Frame, Interior Design, Gooood, Position, INTERIORS (South Korea), CASA (Japan), Wall Paper (UK), GQ, COSMOPOLITAN,, AD, Ideat, TRENDS HOME, Rayli Home, UED, AT, New Architecture, World Architecture Review, and World Architecture, etc.
 
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Dayong Sun (MFA arch.) Dayong graduated in 2012 with Master of Fine Arts from CAFA in Beijing. His thesis was about a research in bionic architecture and got honored with “Best Outstanding Graduation Design” at the CAFA Architecture Session 2012. He has been invited to participate at the International Youth Designer Workshop in Italy / Milano. Dayong used to work as a Project-Architect for Graft Beijing (2005-2010) and Graft Berlin (2008), as an Architect and Researcher at Tsinghua University Institute and as a Senior Architect for HMD in Beijing (2012). Late 2012 he founded ‘penda’ together with Chris.

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Chris Precht (Dipl.Ing.arch.) Chris has won numerous awards in Architecture and Design, among 1st prize at the national Isover Skyscraper competition, the Tile – Award 2013 and was ranked #9 of young architects to follow 2013. His work has recently been exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2010, at the “Emotion in Architecture at Künstlerhaus Salzburg and ‘the Best of’ Exhibition in Innsbruck and Vienna. Chris graduated early 2013 with honors from the Technical University of Vienna and he is the Principle of the designhouse ‘Prechteck’ since 2010. Together with Dayong, he established ‘penda’ in 2012.

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Precht, was launched in 2019 by Fei and Chris. In 2013, Fei & Chris Precht and friend Sun Dayong won a small competition in China. These was the starting point of their first studio called ‘Penda’. They have spent a couple of years in Beijing, built up a team and worked on a lot of projects together.

In 2017, Fei and he moved to Austria. They didn’t move to the city. Not even to a village. They live and work in the mountains of Salzburg. As Fei and Chris do everything as a couple, they renamed their studio ‘Precht’, because it has a more personal and authentic touch to it: "And if you run a studio in a rural area, authenticity is key."

Chris Precht (Dipl.Ing.arch.) Chris has won numerous awards in Architecture and Design, among 1st prize at the national Isover Skyscraper competition, the Tile – Award 2013 and was ranked #9 of young architects to follow 2013.

His work has recently been exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2010, at the “Emotion in Architecture" at Künstlerhaus Salzburg and "the Best of" Exhibition in Innsbruck and Vienna. Chris graduated early 2013 with honors from the Technical University of Vienna.

Fei Tang is an architect, Chris Precht wife and the good soul of their studio. She loves to work on interior projects, products and VI design. She has a pottery studio, is an incredible chef, a patient gardener and in general an great person to be around.

"We both take our work more than serious, but we don’t take ourselves too serious. Life is healthier when you are able to laugh at yourself and with each other. This positive attitude serves as a foundation of our studio."
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Published on: January 19, 2014
Cite: "More arched forms, please. Hongkung Art Gallery by penda" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/more-arched-forms-please-hongkung-art-gallery-penda> ISSN 1139-6415
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