After a year of preparation, ChuLingYin is opened. It is a great pleasure to be a part of the preparations. The term of “ChuLingYin” comes from the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States Period, Which was the highest official title of the Chu State at that time. It was mainly held by the worthy people among the nobles of the Chu State. They are the highest officials who control political affairs and issue orders. They are in charge of the state affairs of a country. They are in the a high position to lead people, preside over state affairs internally, preside over wars externally, and have overall military and political power. Therefore, this name undoubtedly represents high-level, because the location of Chu State includes Hunan. Meanwhile, Hunan culture is exactly the same as ancient Chu culture. We won’t talk about the name of the restaurant here, just remember that ChuLingYin is the representative of high-end Hunan cuisine.

Back to the design, first of all, I am very grateful to our client Ms. HuangYuehong for her strong support and trust, because we also participated in the completion of the predecessor of this project “Yanshe Four Seasons”. Frankly speaking, we are not sure whether it can surpass the previous one. This is a great challenge for Wuzhi Design. The original design intention of ChuLingYin is also obviously different from “Yanshe Four Seasons”. Yanshe is relatively affordable, while Chulingyin is a high-end Hunan Cuisine restaurant with traditional cultural characteristics (in terms of vision and taste). Therefore, the design should naturally revolve around high-end and tradition.

The word “high-end” is a bit offensive to me. Maybe it is due to a little inferiority in my heart. I stay away from it in daily life. But at the same time, what I think is high-end is fundamentally different from the market’s high-end, so I feel relieved. What exactly is advanced? A superficial understanding is refined service, which of course also includes space design. In other words, It is to complicate simple things. This may not sound good, but it is actually the truth. As a result, adding a sense of stage and ceremony has become the protagonist of the design. For example, quiet pools, long corridors, lighting that changes in light and dark, mobile dining trucks showing cooking skills, private seating areas and tea rooms, etc., are all ways to enhance the high-end of space. The more refined service is , the more advanced the guest’s experience will be.

Let‘s talk about tradition. Different people have different interpretations of tradition. Some people regard tradition as conservation, but I don’t think so, because many people don’t know how to look at problems in history. Today’s tradition is already a part of our life. We simply regard tradition as one form is parochial. We do not have the ability to recreate the history and the glory of Chu State, and there is no need to repeat history. The most important thing in space design is to expresso the past in our hearts and create a contemporary “ChuLingYin”. The Chinese nation has thousands of years of heritage. The culture left to us may seem vague, but it is also clear, modest, restrained, simple and profound. It goes through bits and pieces of creation and inheritance. Now we cannot fully reproduce the beauty of Chu culture, but we can also capture some traces of traditional culture in the fragments of history. There is a flash of red on the pottery pots in the museums, and a flash of green on the bronze and jade.

Project Team
Shuang Zhao, Yanan Zheng

Landscape Art Design
Yuxuan Yang

Photography
Shuang Zhao