Using Apollo and Dionysus as aesthetic symbols, Nietzsche delved into the dialectic of the human spirit: the states of dreaming and intoxication, illusion and ego. The name "Blazing Night" embodies this contrasting imagery, employing the dialectic spirits as a spatial metaphor through the lens of time.
Blazing Night is conceived as a dual-purpose space: a café by day and a bar by night, embodying a vision of future interaction. By employing time as a design concept, we transform this multifaceted commercial format into an immersive emotional experience.
The light gives us the basic perception of time. Taking the variation of time as a design idea, we deploy visual languages to compose a flowing spatial narrative: as day turns to night, the cafe turns into the bar, light and color changing accordingly, and the passage of time is presented visually.
Step into the entrance and encounter with the center of the space story—a round bar counter. Its form of circle is a symbol of function, a creation of story, and a new structure endowed with full of symbolic time metaphors. It creates a vivid, multi-layer relationship in the center of the space, and also shapes the characteristics of the site. The space is divided into three zones (up, middle, and down) with the distinct functions of a bar, a platform, and a cafe. Meanwhile, it brings a sense of time movement.
Low ceilings, an enclosure bar, and massive arc luminous light film create an immersive ambience together. In the embodied experience of diffuse lighting, the spatial narration begins. The abstract concept of time becomes a concrete space—could be either an energy field reserving unknown elements or an experimental theater. From the blurring of light and color, the combination of virtuality and reality, to ambiguous and mysterious atmosphere, the attractions of a surreal spirit world endow the space with charisma to engaging exploration.
The rectangle installation hanging above the bar is both the inspiration of time and the prediction of the story. In the smoke, the red spotlight beam begins the molecule-movement of time. Two light trails are moving at different speeds, crossing the structure and overlapping, which metaphorically represents the dialectic and integration of two time lines in different dimension, calling the enthusiasm of space.
Day and night are complementary with each other, forming dialectic spaces in the contrast of nature. Up to the second floor, the bar, based on the concept of a store within a store, keeps the independence of space as well as produces a sequential space. On the scale of time, we go from a moment to another. The rational sequence and sensitive variety produce a continuous dialectic space. While walking through, we get a pleasant sensation of embracing with the true self.
Blazing Night is both the creation and the re-creation of time. Like the start point and the terminal point, they are integrated as one at the moment and eternally. The blazing fantasy is the future and the prediction, carrying the consciousness of freedom and releasing the experience of spirit. Moving in this dialectical circle, coffee and wine, day and night, brightness and darkness, reality and dream, the utopian and the anti-utopian, all coexist under the dome of time narrative.
In the concept of time, the flowing of consciousness and the fusion of cultures build the space into a dynamic organism. It removes the boundaries of time and creates a bold and sensitive narration. Here, in Blazing Night, is the world we experience and imagine—our spirit world.
Project: Blazing Night
Location: No.31-1, Lower Ground Floor 2, Sihai Cheng Plaza, Guangzhou, CHINA
Year: 2022.10
Area: 174m²
Architects: One Fine Day Studio & Partners (http://www.ofdsp.com/)
Lead Architect: Jump LEE Design
Team: Zi-Yue CHOU, Ru-Lin FANG, Guang-Wei, LIU
Photographs：yuuuunstudio
Thanks One Fine Day Studio & Partners for authorizing the publication of the project on domènech concept - Text description provided by One Fine Day Studio & Partners.
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