Text/Roxy Y. Tang
“Near and Far, North and South: Six Reflections on Culture“
Autumn winds paint the mountain forests, heralding the season most suited for outings and intellectual communion. The gradually cooling sea tides and the tranquil fragrance of osmanthus add a layer of blue to the horizon and a touch of gold to the spirit. People gather in this vibrant yet serene mid-autumn clarity, shaping a new cycle of daily life amidst the seasonal bustle of harvest and shared stories.
Cultural creators from distant corners arrive, borne on the wind, converging in two landscapes where time and space are perfectly aligned. Set in the small-scale, knowledge-oriented community of Friendship Bay on the Aranya North Bank, and nestled amongst the mountains of Moganshan at the restored French-inspired Mo Village Inn, these serve as the tangible northern and southern embodiments of a shared vision championed by Mercedes-Benz and The Perfect World – one of resilient poise and balanced dynamism. Friendship Bay®, in partnership with T China, specially invited six creators deeply engaged in architecture, media, visual arts, film, and art to discuss their creative experiences, expressive foundations, and humanistic reflections—rooted in their respective disciplines, poised between rationality and sensibility, concerned with both the present and the future.
From afar, with lofty aspirations, steadfast as a rock: Architect Jin Yuan, recipient of the renowned “Oscar of Architecture Graduation Projects”—the Archiprix Global Award; cultural media figure Zhu Likang, an active voice in China’s contemporary architecture and design circles; and young photographer Wang Qingshan, who interprets our restless era with the unique perspective of a ’90s digital native. Taking the community scene as their starting point, they extrapolate visions of a distant prospect from multiple dimensions. Drawing near, observing the present, with adaptable ease: Visual designer Mei Shuzhi, committed to unearthing freshness and fun from daily life to push the diversity and possibilities of design; animation and documentary director Xiang Yao, who focuses on social events and the mental states of diverse groups; and young artist Wu Chonghui, who grew up amidst multicultural influences and loves discovering entirely new observational perspectives from the permutations of nature. They use the mountains, waters, and wild fields as their entry point for inspiration, radiating from the far to the near, proposing paths of release for the here and now.
Following the faint light swirling through the eras, all enduring creations born in history originate from a profound yearning and persist through discursive consensus. For over a century, Mercedes-Benz has remained dedicated to the pinnacle of cutting-edge technology and humanistic care, continuously generating new solutions—lasting for humanity, knowledge, ecology, and all things—through its own brand foresight and local interaction. Extending the reach of body and mind infinitely towards the distance, whether through a deft touch or a wisp of breeze, and leading a generation forward within the tangible, perceptible foreground—this is perhaps the natural way that crystallized knowledge, regardless of its form, can travel freely through the long river of time.
【Distant Vistas, Riding the Wind】
From summer into winter in the northern seas, the west wind scatters the salty sea mist along the Beidaihe coast, the lush forests growing more robust. In early winter, Friendship Bay resembles an elder, savoring sights seen and experiences felt amidst the gradually calming waves and crowds. To the architect Jin Yuan, cultural media figure Zhu Likang, and young photographer Wang Qingshan, arriving as promised on this day, Friendship Bay consistently opens its arms, harboring intellectual warmth in the details of its guests’ lodging and sustenance.
Pursuing a philosophy and methodology of relentless refinement from the angles of design and experience, following the times and closely adhering to needs—this is not only architect Jin Yuan’s interpretation of a “visionary life,” as a multi-faceted individual persistently honing his craft towards that 1% of super-individual power, but also the essential desire and practical execution consistently embodied by Mercedes-Benz. “What is foresight? Foresight is like me, in this present moment, doing one thing completely seriously, to the utmost of my ability, genuinely wanting to do it well,” Jin Yuan remarked, strolling through the multi-level corner staircases of the Juanzong Apartments. “Good design is inherently scarce in the world, so I no longer get angry about bad things. One just needs to keep doing something seriously, steadfastly. Looking back, you’ll find that was precisely a visionary act.”
The lobby space on the first floor of the Friendship Bay Club Hotel, ‘mi casa su casa,’ presented itself to Jin Yuan as a meticulously arranged “surprise.” “Because the regularly arranged guest room windows are the only external information the architect left for observers from the square. Yet, one wouldn’t have imagined its interior contains such a large hall, and these compelling exposed wood-textured concrete load-bearing columns.” Placing himself amongst these monumental pillars, using his own person as a unit of measure, he gauged the relationship between human and colonnade—”This relationship is like eyes beneath a brim, animated by the shelter. The fujie zhouza of traditional Chinese architecture and the loggias of Italian cities are like this.” The green mineral terrazzo used for the outdoor flooring of the Juanzong Apartments and the colonnades it forms face southeast and southwest respectively; sunlight streams in from various angles throughout the day. “Often, one side is warmth, the other is farewell. The further marvel of this L-shaped colonnade is its lingering, entangled relationship with time. I’m grateful for the depth conveyed through such concise clarity. But the wood-textured concrete is very different from these robust colonnades. The former, within the space, is no longer silent shelter; it seems to want to become a concert hall, a banquet, a festival.”
Speaking of time, media figure Zhu Likang has a different, more dynamic way of thinking. As a producer and host of architectural documentaries, whether engaging in dialogue with architects for work or organically integrating more interconnectedness both on and off camera, “each interview records an architect’s glory and dilemmas within the contemporary industry, as well as the temporality inherent to the medium itself.” While focusing on and analyzing specific moments in contemporary architecture and design art, the timeline connecting these points and the cluster of documentaries forming a plane have allowed her, through successive dialogues, to touch the extremes of spirit. “In the Friendship Bay community, the spiritual North Bank Chapel seems incongruous with daily life, yet harmonizes with the surrounding environment. The ‘state of dialogue’ presented between buildings, between spaces, also instantly echoes ‘the present’ and ‘foresight.’”
If what one sees now and what one will meet later appear simultaneously, it’s like the juxtaposition of a fixed architectural entity and spontaneously emerging creative inspiration within the same spacetime. “Just like shooting an architectural documentary, you can never predict the next step; this fascinating process is both tense and exciting,” Zhu Likang shared. Expanding her understanding of past and future time from her work experience, she has cultivated an indestructible force for action. “‘Foresight’ is about holding ‘future expectations’ for life, bravely embarking on one’s own steadfast, endless journey. The opening of the Friendship Bay public community has fostered more communication and connection between people, eliminating barriers.” Reflecting on her walks through the community exhibitions and the Chongsheng Grocery, she noted how the increasingly experimental and forward-looking designs evident in the ongoing iteration of modern life, from clothing and food to housing and transport, are also reflected in the end-user considerations persistently cared for by many national brands.
Interpreting real-world circumstances through reconstruction, adopting a longer-term perspective and unique expression to create and to impact—photographer Wang Qingshan’s work often captures fragments of life people take for granted, anchoring an artistic language that transcends the everyday through chance encounters, re-creation, accumulation, and resolve. When Wang Qingshan first stood in the central square of Friendship Bay, he noticed how the encircling architecture left deliberate voids at just the right spots. The grey-white and beige walls in the gaps, punctuated by occasional strokes of blue, gave him a visual experience akin to viewing a classical garden. “Strolling through this small courtyard on an early autumn evening, I felt the precise yet restrained aura emanating from the surrounding architectural spaces. This aura gave me a crisp, almost cool physical sensation, as if daily life here were 3 to 5 degrees Celsius lower than in the noisy city, seeming more rational, and more detached from the conventional.” Comparing temperature sensation to another landscape, he, like his work, breaches the customary indifference of the urban mundane, challenging the possible pathways through which it might be re-perceived and understood.
Looking down at the courtyard from the window frame on the second-floor terrace of the North Bank Chapel, the frame acts as a natural viewfinder. “It reminded me irresistibly of Japanese photographer Hayahisa Tomiyasu’s classic photobook TTP,” Wang Qingshan narrated. “From this perspective, every briefly passing figure constitutes a part of the daily scene, yet the observer, through this frame, captures a series of chance stories, gaining a viewing experience detached from the everyday.” The unique cultural atmosphere and evolving aesthetic context within Friendship Bay’s open block provide fertile ground for this transcendent perspective. How does one see far? If our daily lives always follow a set routine, short-sighted vision might only see the back of the person ahead. “‘Foresight’ can see the ‘distant view’ because it surpasses the height of the everyday, capturing a broader landscape; or, by simply shifting perspective, one can see a completely different scene—’ranging from ranges, peaks from peaks.’” As a young creator in the current era, carving out one’s own ambitions and pursuits between the landmarks of inheritance and critique is, in itself, a refreshing wind that connects surrounding potential and achieves visionary insight.
【Awaiting the Wind Nearby, Returning to the Village Woods】
In the Jiangnan region not yet touched by the north wind, lies a French mountain retreat nestled deep within the tea forests of Moganshan. In its 13th year standing in the valley, it has been transformed by the Chinese design team Onoaa Studio® into the present-day Mo Village Hotel®, a place where every step offers a new view, leisurely and serene. Rather than encroaching on the naturally settled architecture, interior furnishings, and vegetation of the original mountain house, the design, materials, spacetime, and human elements were meticulously refined, delineating a still, reserved space between void and solid, beautifully detached yet not practical and comfortable. Choosing a day of clear skies, cultural creators arriving from various southern cities—designer Mei Shuzhi, young director Xiang Yao, and young artist Wu Chonghui—simultaneously immersed themselves in the sensitive spacetime named “Mo Village,” stepping away from their workaday routines and into contemplative gazes.
As the second-season community scene for “A Visionary Life,” Mo Village Hotel, compared to Friendship Bay, possesses its own unique utopian quality and historical imprint. What brought designer Mei Shuzhi to Mo Village on this day was his currently most favored Mercedes-Benz® GLS SUV series; having grown up in Zhejiang, Mei Shuzhi never liked staying put. He previously founded 702 design in Beijing, serving as art director, and is now the curator and exhibition director of X sign Space®, a vocal force in Hangzhou’s art ecology. Speaking about future plans, Mei Shuzhi admitted, “‘Foresight’ can sometimes be a limitation; the process of life itself is more important. Culture and creativity have no standard answers. What we must do is find sensitivity connections within vague.” Defining precisely what is the present and what is the future can instead feel constraining. “For instance, penicillin was discovered by accident, not ‘planned.’ If we imagine both the present and the future as links in a process, our vision can naturally broaden, and our methods for solving problems will become more diverse.”
Returning to the immediate, Mei Shuzhi observed the interior space of the inn’s old building while deconstructing the form and content of the Chinese character “莫” (Mo) in the Fuyu Bookhouse. “The graphic form of this character ‘莫’ shows clusters of plants surrounding the ‘日’ (the sun) in the middle, which is like a flame.” His clever insight liberates design from narrow confines, pushing it towards a deeper consideration of language and culture. A blur, experimental state is, in Mei Shuzhi’s view, a fascinating petri dish. Across different cultural fields, he is known for strategies like “disrupting,” “disassembling,” “translating,” and “expanding,” promoting ongoing exploration and open thinking regarding the use of the Chinese language through unconventional design experiments. “Living nearby, I often drive into the mountains.” For Mei Shuzhi, the best state is about: “Being able to maintain focus but also to stop, to play within the process of moving.”
Similarly, from a professional standpoint, director Xiang Yao, who works extensively with animation and film, sees Mo Village Inn as a sequence of interconnected frames: from the surrounding rolling mountains to the winding asphalt main road, whether the studied French selections or the solid Chinese construction. Strolling slowly inside and outside the architectural cluster, she linked the bottles, jars, halls, greenery, and pine-scented breezes, shaping an expressive process that moves from one point to another, profound and warm. As a director, Xiang Yao believes: “Good stories definitely originate from perceptions in life, or from certain experienced events. The form of documentation can run parallel to life. You can give yourself a point in time, gather materials then, and decide what perspective, what viewpoint to use to present them, including personal reflections—all can be placed within the story.” In her view, it’s still too early to say whether our generation possesses foresight; what we can and need to do is persistently explore new languages, unearth and present more authentic stories, shoulder and support social responsibility as best we can, while always maintaining our own sharp worldview and values.
Artist Wu Chonghui, a Chinese American steeped in multicultural influences from childhood, began her understanding of Mo Village Inn with an English word: resort. “resort” might be the most commonly agreed-upon Chinese equivalent among countless definitions, “but this isn’t a standard ‘resort’ in that sense.” Wu Chonghui’s feeling sparked reflection and discussion among the creators present, who began citing their own ideas of what constitutes a vacation house versus Mo Village Inn, exploring subtle resonances or differences. Perhaps it’s the interpenetration of local customs and French elements; perhaps it’s a flower arrangement, a person, a book, or a beam of light within the inn, freely combining into different scenes at different times, creating utterly distinct feelings. Loving to seek contrasts and disparities from the permutations of nature, artist Wu Chonghui carries a card-sized notebook everywhere, quietly sketching the vast world she sees. “The initial inspiration gathering is always very relaxed. But one day, when lines, images, keywords—these raw materials for the canvas—suddenly coalesce into a complete work in my mind, I will then control the creation more precisely, like where this line goes, where that image is placed, etc.” This is Wu Chonghui’s method of balance: balancing between looseness and precision, between expression and misreading. “When many layers are kneaded together, when the highest and lowest appear simultaneously within one frame—that’s the most interesting,” said the artist, diving into the mountain forest to sketch.
The setting sun accompanied the group’s return in the evening. BACCO® had prepared the locally sourced, subtle aromas of the hearth, ready to promptly present the guests, once seated, with the fresh, fragrant dishes and clear, sweet wines they had been anticipating. Whether Moghan Huangya tea pasta, cream and wine-braised bamboo grove chicken, or Roman-style tripe stew infused with Chinese spices, BACCO’s hosts, Hu Lanbin and his wife Shang Qian, with their imaginative creativity and care, and their profound love and respect for diverse culinary cultures, meticulously fold and unfold a sustainable living philosophy within the inn’s dining bar, wine cellar, kitchen, and an alimentary education school insulated from external noise and anxiety.
Bamboo groves reflect the moonlight, the bright yellow starburst emblem shining brilliantly on the mountainside. The clear breeze and bright moon part the clouds and mist. People often dwell in the spiritual places of this era, not because they are profoundly inscrutable or provide instant answers, but precisely because they emerge time and again from history, converge the overlay of collective memory, serving as stable, reliable, visible experiences in a rapidly changing time, and as calming fields for accumulating energy within a scattered, contradictory landscape. If we consider “community” as a mindset, it is not even a way to root a perspective in the prevailing nomadism of the current era, attempting to reshape contemporary culture and contextual interest through a structural logic that works from effect back to cause. On one side lies the cyclical, far-gazing life philosophy of Friendship Bay and Mo Village Inn; on the other, the direct, forward-driving creative pursuit of Mercedes-Benz. Reaching the thoroughfare, one might ultimately realize: 「Foresight」 is the basic equipment for those who set out; 「Riding the Wind」 is the daily state for dreamers; yet only that culture, that universal method which remains luminous after repeated washing by time, constitutes the collective wisdom capable of enduring.
*Originally published on T Magazine (December Issue). ISSN: 1674-5140
Yuting (Roxy) TANG 