I’m from Belgium
My Chinese name is Wen Shounuo
I’ve been in China for over two decades
It was known as Zhizhu Temple
About four hundred meters from the Palace Museum
Built in the Qing dynasty
It was the first Tibetan Buddhist temple in Beijing
Covering an area of about 3000 square meters
I found it in 2007
Ancient buildings have always fascinated me
But I couldn’t imagine doing it alone
So I reached out to many good friends
Including Lin Fan, Zhou Lixian and others
We together restored the temple
We made this art zone
And open to the public
It’s not a private club kind of thing
The area is protected by the cultural relics bureau
There are Songzhu Temple, Zhizhu Temple and Fayuan Temple
Before the restoration only the roof of the main hall was visible
Not the old buildings
Others were overshadowed by the buildings of the 60s
And there was a shabby little hotel, a restaurant
Basically a trash recycling place
Our principle was to “restore it as it was”
We removed what we didn’t want to keep
It was done by trucks coming in and out the small yard over four hundred times
It wasn’t easy
Took us two, three months to complete
The main hall was the focus of the project
We spent one year restoring it
The ceiling of the main hall
Was decorated with about three hundred paintings
We took them down and fixed them one by one
And put them back
About eighty of them were successfully repaired
Over sixty thousand tiles were mended
We kept the original materials
And manually cleaned them
The space is quite big
We have gardens outdoors
When people come visit for the first time
I hope they’d be like, Okay, narrow hutongs
And then all of a sudden, such a huge open space
A 60s factory were transformed into a restaurant
It serves French cuisine
Because cooking French doesn’t require open fire
Some buildings built in the 60s
Were also restored
And we made an art space
With those old materials
The restoration project started in 2008
The plan was two years
But actually that’s impossible
2010 was the most difficult time for us
I decided to quit my job in Shanghai
And sold my stock equity
In 2013
We received an award from the United Nations
They rated our project
As the best restoration in Asia
It means the world to me
For the theme of the restoration
I landed on the concept of light
Gathered Sky is an installation triggered at sunset
Many James Turrells are collected in museums
Or private museums
So we ordinary people don’t usually see them
This is the first James Turrell work in China
That is open to the public
We host many concerts
Because of the wooden structure
The music effect here is wonderful
We are very well-visited
Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple
Edouard Philippe, the Prime Minister of France
At first
People thought of me as a foreigner
Who was romantic of course, but didn’t understand China
And no one would come here
But last year, 160 thousand people visited
Foreigners love it, Chinese love it too