Exclusive Beijing Members Club by Superimpose Architecture | Yellowtrace

Exclusive Beijing Members Club by Superimpose Architecture | Yellowtrace

Exclusive Beijing Members Club by Superimpose Architecture | Yellowtrace

Exclusive Beijing Members Club by Superimpose Architecture | Yellowtrace

Exclusive Beijing Members Club by Superimpose Architecture | Yellowtrace

Exclusive Beijing Members Club by Superimpose Architecture | Yellowtrace

Exclusive Beijing Members Club by Superimpose Architecture | Yellowtrace

 

Designed by New York-based practice Kohn Pedersen Fox, with an award-winning brand concept by American agency Wolff Olins, the new Genisis Beijing building is impressive for a list of reasons. Conceived of and led by academic and social policy expert Dr. Whitney Duan, the building’s greater mission is to help to repair the loss of community in Chinese society. Though, it feels a little more like a place to spot a James Bond villain: the building is home to a Bulgari Hotel with interiors by Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and Partners, a garden created by Swiss landscape architect and collector of trees, Enzo Enea—oh and a museum, designed by 1995 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, Tadao Ando.

So then, a top-floor private club with a secret tea room and wine cellar doesn’t seem so farfetched for Genesis. Pieced together by Beijing-based Superimpose Architecture, the floor is divided into two distinct worlds—an office space and the private club, only accessible to members via a hidden pivot-door. Inside are sprawling, vertigo-inducing views across Beijing’s embassy and financial district, reflected in golden stainless steel walls.

Panels of dark mirrored glass disguise a 25 sqm wine cellar or ‘sky cellar’, which houses some 500 bottles from a few of the world’s best wine regions—Bordeaux, Rhone Valley, Burgundy, Napa Valley, Mosel, and Barolo. An abstract map of the regions rendered in concrete ash mud and stainless steel lies underneath a glass floor. Gold-hued stainless steel shelves are coated with an acrylic base to allow for different styles of storage—stacked or inclined. The acrylic also allows for light to scatter gently through the cellar.

 

Related: Stories On Design // Metallic Interiors.

 

 


[Images courtesy of Superimpose Architecture. Photography by Marc Goodwin.]

 



About The Author

Sammy Preston is a writer, editor, and curator living in Sydney. Working especially within art and design, and then lifestyle and culture more broadly, Sammy is a senior writer at Broadsheet, and a contributing digital editor at Foxtel's Lifestyle platform. Sammy also contributes regularly to art and design press like VAULT Magazine, Art Collector, Art Edit, Habitus, and Indesign magazines. She's written art essays for MUSEUM, exhibition texts for Sophie Gannon Gallery, and has worked as an arts and culture editor for FBi Radio. In 2016, she worked as part of the editorial team for Indesign Magazine as digital editor during the publication's pivotal print and website redesign. Sammy was also the founding manager and curator of contemporary art space Gallery 2010—a curator-run initiative housed within a Surry Hills loading dock. The gallery hosted exhibitions with emerging and established artists from 2012 until 2016.

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