Project Name：Crowne Plaza Taiyuan
Site：The Intersection of Changzhi Road and Qinxian North Street, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, China
Area： Approximately 55,575 square meters
Category：Business Hotel
Opening Date：July 2019
Design Consultancy：YANG & Associates Group
Chief Designers：Yang Bangsheng, Chen Bohua, Hu Chaozhen
Photographer： Xiao En

With the sun shining upon Taihang Mountain and the moon glowing upon Lvliang Mountain, with Fen River flowing towards the east and the yellow soil spreading over a fertile field, this glorious and flourishing age is eulogized in epic, and is dreamed of tracing back thousands of years just for a glimpse of Jinyang City.

Taiyuan City in Shanxi Province is the ancient capital of nine dynasties. With magnificent and beautiful sceneries of the mountain and the river, and also with many famous emperors in the history hidden there, it is as famous as Chang’an City and Luoyang City, and is named as “Hidden Place of Dragons”, also known as the Dragon City. The legendary and imaginative Dragon culture enriches the spirit and connotation of this city, and also inspires YANG to design Crowne Plaza Taiyuan in a culturally distinctive way.

Located in the cultural and fashionable Qinxian core business circle, Crowne Plaza Taiyuan plays an important role in the city layout to accelerate the rapid development of new cultural tourism industry. To cater to the high-end positioning of the brand, YANG interprets the ancient charm of Dragon city in a contemporary way, adopts the “Dragon” culture to link the space, creates a noble and mysterious ambience via the interaction between various elements, and creates an international five-star hotel with classic cultural imagery and modern artistic aesthetics, which let guests to roam around to experience the fun of exploring and discovering. 

The majestic imagery of “Flying Dragon in the Sky” presented in the lobby is to pay homage to the millennium glorious history of the Dragon City, and to show the soaring aspiration of Taiyuan. The brown texture screen at the end of the entryway combining the digital LED waterscape forms the ripples spreading over in sequence. Several metal artistic suspended lights forms the vigorous “Dragon Shape” in an ingenious way, which corresponds to the waterscape, and therefore a spectacular imagery of the dragon jumping out of the water and hovering in the sky is vividly portrayed.

The design of black dragon scales backdrop in the reception is ingenious, with the dragon flying against the different intensity of light, the light and shadow changes and expresses surprises in each careless turn. The aisle in the lobby bar connected to the lobby is decorated with “Dragon Tail” art installation in a semi-hidden way to intrigue people to discover the underwater scenery and explore the lobby bar.

Different from the traditional bar showing the whole space, designers adopt several large scale bookshelves to separate different lounges, which guarantees privacy and also enriches the spatial levels via curving lines. Shanxi cultural relics and antiquities displayed in the bookshelves tell the story of the Dragon City through the ages. The delicate gauze curtain presents the romantic and aesthetic “Imagery of Hidden Dragon” in a real scene and also veils the unexpected surprises in the bookshelves.

The all-day-dinging restaurant captures the scenery of ancient street of the Dragon City. With ancient architectural lines etched on the buffet counter and wall cabinet, it permeates rich historical ambience against warm yellow light. The thoughts unconsciously follow the scenery, and wanders in the bustling and prosperous city. The orange yellow dining chairs creates clear and bright atmosphere and soothes the oppression in the windowless space. Eight artistic suspended lights in the center of cold food dining area abstracts the shape of the dragon scale in a futuristic way to shine and capture people’s eyesight to present the contemporary artistic beauty.

The simplistic design of the column free banquet hall highlights the international style, and reflects the inclusive spirit of the city. The walls and ceilings evolved from the element of dragon scales convey the modern fashion as well as the traditional charms. The dark and mysterious purple smudge of the carpet complements the sharp and straight lines of the space and light tones, corresponding to the sparking lights in the ceiling to create elegant and romantic ambience.

The design of the guestroom, based on the characteristics of the brand, has integrated nature with humanity flavor. The natural texture of cotton, linen and original wood creates a serene and restful ambience. The classic purple tone of the brand logo is altered accordingly and applied into the pillows and carpets to continue its noble and mysterious charms, which adds a sense of movement to the space. The bedside wall lamps take shape from the ancient welcome lanterns, which not only uplift the cultural taste, but also convey the blissful wishes. The suite design adopts semi screen instead of TV cabinet to keep the beauty the L-shaped window as well as to shorten the distance between the TV and the bed to make sure the lounge and the office area are not mutually disturbed. Such humanistic design aims to promote the living standards.

Exploring the essence of the local culture, representing the ancient charms of the Dragon City, conveying the invisible form via the visible shape, and containing the richness in the simplicity, the Crowne Plaza Taiyuan designed by YANG is brimmed with cultural charms and modern fashion, which contributes to awaken guests’ desires of exploring the city, and which not only improves the image and quality of the city, but also enables the hotel to be the starting point of a city exploration journey.