Contract Magazine - January/February 2017 - 74

INTERIORS AWARDS

Adaptive Reuse
Shanghai Godolphin

International
Wine &
Spirits
Museum

By Jean Nayar
Photography by
Rob Cleary

74

"We don't like to do anything normal," says Kyle Mertensmeyer,
an American architect and design director of the Shanghai-based
firm Shanghai Godolphin. His firm's design for the Shanghai
International Wine & Spirits Museum underscores this point. Located
in a 70-year-old former military bunker built by Chiang Kai-shek
within a cave carved into the Chenshan Mountain, this is the only
privately owned wine museum in China. And unlike a typical showcase
space for wine, the adaptive reuse of this 32,000-square-foot interior
recalls its earlier incarnation as wartime storage for artillery, crops,
and national treasures.
"We didn't want it to look like an Italian villa," Mertensmeyer
says. "The aesthetic came from the idea that, like wine culture,
the bunker was a piece of history-you feel it, sense it, and smell
it when you're there."
As it turns out, military bunkers and wine cellars have much
in common functionally. "A cellar must stay cool-between 15 and
20 degrees Celsius with 60 to 75 percent humidity," says Mertensmeyer.

Client
International Wine
& Spirits Museum

Location
Shanghai

"Because the space is inside a mountain, it naturally stays at the right
temperature and humidity all the time."
For his client, Li Xuan, a passionate collector of wine and
its accoutrements, the location also offered an intriguing setting for
the multifaceted program he envisioned. "The idea came to me with
the feeling that people in China need to have a look at the world of
wine from [the] inside, to glance behind the curtain, not just [read
information on the] Internet alone," says Li, "but [to be] in a place
where they can feel the atmosphere of this beverage, see its ancient
and rich history, and discover different tastes of wine and their own
tastes in the end."
The museum not only highlights Li's collection of wine and
paraphernalia gathered on tours of vineyards and mansions in Europe
but it also serves to educate visitors about the winemaking process
and to allow sellers to spotlight their wines. The program includes
a pavilion, a private wine club, a retail space, a cellar and tasting room,
as well as bonded warehouse spaces for importers. Fortuitously,
the original layout lent itself to a notion of procession that drove
the architect's plan for the museum.
The visitor's experience begins at an original airlock hatch door.
To pass through it, one must bend in a kind of bow of deference to
the mysteries of history and culture to be unlocked within. Ultimately,
the architects approached the interior like an installation, leaving
the original walls and concrete flooring largely intact while relying
on wine-related elements from Li's collection to inject the spirit
of wine culture into the rooms.
Beyond the entrance, antiques and objects-such as decanters,
corkscrews, presses, and wooden plows-are exhibited directly on
the floor or in cases set atop antique wine barrels. In the pavilion, a series
of antique wine crates stacked on top of oak plinths display bottles of
wine illuminated with recessed LEDs, which enable the space to remain
cool. The retail area beyond is lit with pendants made of wine bottles
and is defined by honeycombed wine crates mounted on the floors and
ceiling. "We drew [the wine crate] locations on paper and placed them
onsite for an organic look," says Mertensmeyer. "If you use parametric
rendering, the result becomes too slick."
Finally, the tour ends at the private cellar for VIP wine tasting,
where visitors can gather at a white terrazzo-topped handcrafted table
surrounded by custom Arts and Crafts-inspired high-back chairs.
There, they can inspect the color and clarity of a chosen wine as they
sit and appreciate it. c

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