Osmanthus Moon
OSMANTHUS MOON
HCCH Studio
ARCHITECTS
HCCH Studio
DESIGN TEAM
Hao Chen, Chenchen Hu, Feng Qi
LIGHT CONSULTANT
Ada Lighting
CLIENT
Power Station Of Art Shanghai
CONTRACTOR
Art Zhou
PHOTOGRAPHS
Guowei Liu
AREA
41 m²
YEAR
2025
LOCATION
Shanghai, China
CATEGORY
Pavilion
English description provided by the architects.
Osmanthus Moon is a short-term public art installation created to celebrate the traditional Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.
It is a projection, specially as well as metaphorically, of the widely beloved traditional osmanthus pattern — a signature plant and flavor of autumn — and forms a dialogue with the action paintings of a folk "Zao Hua" (stove flower) artist, an intangible cultural heritage tradition.
The pavilion rests on the semicircular lawn of Century Park like a translucent full moon descending in quietness.
Its spatial framework weaves traditional osmanthus motifs into vine-like bronze patterns, while lightweight elastic fabric stretches across the surface to form the moon's luminous skin.
The design pays tribute to the 'golden cabbage' of the Vienna Secession while aspiring to evoke the romantic sci-fi sensibility of Buckminster Fuller domes.
The osmanthus patterns painted on the ground by the Zao Hua artist mirror the golden lattice of the dome above — each a projection of the other. Together, they form a complementary dialogue between on-site and prefabrication, movement and stillness.
Delicate, radiant, and fragile — it embodies the timeless yet brittle joy and longing that the 'moon' and the 'osmanthus' have evoked through the ages.
Visitors may enter through two irregular openings into the interior of the moon.
During the daytime, the space is characterized by impressionistic light and soft textile surfaces;
at night, the interplay of shadows and diffused illumination transforms the interior into an immersive, dreamlike environment — as if one were stepping into a temporal mirror.
The project was commissioned by the Power Station of Art in Shanghai and was presented for a duration of twelve days.
