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Lots of people don't think the Chinese can construct such kind of building.
As soon as this building is constructed, many foreign critics come to visit.
They are also amazed that the Chinese can construct such building.
In my eyes, technology is a problem.
Another problem is
that whether you want to do it or not.
Since the water level of Songhua River changes every year,
it draws on the broad riverbed
a very strange curve,
which looks like a big artwork.
So I hope there will be a kind of new building
which can respond to this natural terrain.
The continuous ribbon rises up slowly from the ground,
then turns to a undulate snowing mountain,
descends again slowly to the ground.
It seems that the word "landmark"
has a negative meaning today.
But in our memories,
in my memory of childhood for example,
I was greatly impressed by the small garden near National Art Museum of China.
Many things happened there
are related to my growth.
This place is a landmark for me.
However the big building nearby,
I don't remember it at all.
I forget how National Art Museum of China looks like.
It is against my hope to build something like wallpaper in the city,
something just for pictures.
I hope it can attract some people to approach it, to enter it,
or even to be impulsed to climb it.
People can walk up from the ground.
Along the ramp on the outside wall, they can
walk up slowly.
As a result, it is not necessary that you go for theater,
you can also be interacted with this building.
I use aluminium plates for external walls.
Because in Harbin,
there is a large temperature difference between forty or fifty degrees below zero and forty degrees above zero,
aluminum is a good material.
You can also notice that some aluminum plates
have some ups and downs, like design of some bags.
When these bags arrange on surface of the building,
it looks like skin,
which seems to give the metal building a breath.
As long as I can see, light is spirit for buildings.
We hope to fill up this space with natural light
to blur its relation with outside world.
And even when people enter the building,
they can sense themselves are between an outdoor space and an indoor space.
In the hall, you can see the main theater.
It is an object made of wood in organic shape.
The wood is ash.
Before, many rural families of northern China made furniture with it.
Workers design this material and make them as battens,
so that they can be perfectly matched with the organic shape that we want.
When spectators enter there, they can still have a sense of touch.
The core of grand theater is sound.
Each auditorium is concave,
just like caves.
This shape provides some very complicated sound-reflecting conditions.
The more complicated is the sound-reflecting,
the better and more is its overlap of levels.
I want to make this building a big musical instrument for the whole feeling,
like a vertical bamboo flute which is cleaved,
inside are pipelines in which sound flows.
The walls of the small theater are made of beton.
We make them as water ripples.
When you sit in auditorium,
you will feel that these water ripples come outdoor.
The backstage of the small theater is a completely transparent glass design,
in order to introduce indoor natural light,
and also to make outdoor views become one part of performances.
From the moment when we were participated in the competition, we already had this conception.
Then we won the bidding, and began to design and build.
We have spent six years in total to finish it until now.
There are few opportunities for Chinese independent offices in China to have big projects.
I think this is a very unhealthy phenomenon.
I actually think
that independent architects should also get chances to show their opinions.