Envisioned by Shanghai-based AIM Architecture, Taoxichuan Hotel celebrates all things ceramic.
Located in the heart of Jingdezhen, China’s porcelain capital, the 196-key hotel is inspired by the journey of porcelain: the origin (lobby), the creation (lounge), the discovery (ballroom), the fascination (restaurant), the appreciation (spa and pool), and the return (guestrooms).
Each space explores and uses ceramic differently, pulling out different colours and textures to create unique architecture, interior, furniture, and patterns.
Its contemporary brick architecture was designed by David Chipperfield’s studio and consists of three courtyard blocks connected by a generous interior street.
AIM sought to use the interiors to ‘finish the architecture’; extending the brick facades of the exterior to the interiors.
Each of the three volumes are dedicated to a different technique. For example, the lounge uses green Celadon glazing, while the restaurant and spa are committed to the methods of using cobalt for blue colouring. The meeting and ballroom are all about the lightness and transparency of porcelain. To move through the hotel is to move through different techniques of porcelain.
The centrepiece in the connecting street is inspired by the fire kilns that bake the porcelain—black, a landscape of platforms to put art to be or art that has become. Meanwhile skylights evoke the powerful heat of the kilns.
The guest areas are more subtle and grounded. Named Ateliers, they are places for guests to return to, retreat, and refresh among the unglazed and more workshop-like textures, “benches” and shelves. Clay tones dominate, and canvas walls create solitude and opportunities for encounters with material and uniqueness.
As a whole, the hotel is a tribute to the technique and experience of porcelain in the heart of its birthplace.
Taoxichuan Hotel recently joined Hyatt‘s upmarket Unbound Collection brand.
