Jingdezhen Rekindled

Jingdezhen Rekindled conceives of the museum as not merely a static, hermetic repository for the relics, but additionally as a site that actively maintains the cultural practices and modes of production that created them. This fuller-blooded notion of the historical as ongoing process organizes the site of a Yuan Dynasty porcelain kiln in Jingdezhen around the rhythmic firing of its kilns and the flows of people, materials, and energy.

Two buildings are inserted at the perpendicular axial intersection between two archaeological excavations and a modern, yet abandoned, tunnel kiln factory complex. Together they afford each visitor the opportunity to stitch together the past and present with their own footsteps, providing an easily walkable loop that cuts across several time horizons.

A pavilion sits above grade, spanning two of the dormant brick chimneys. It transitions visitors from the bustle of the rejuvenated factory floor toward a gradual descent into the archaeological sites, where exposed relics emerge from the slope, foregrounding the depths of time traversed. Below ground, a relic gallery connects the two excavations, exhibiting unearthed porcelain from the three dynasties of production represented at the site.

Project cooperatively pursued with Aaron David Charles Hill during Zhu Pei’s GSD studio Spring 2018.