a slip returns to guangzhou’s pearl river
In the first Guangzhou Shipyard, a large slope crosses Kengo Kuma and AssociatesShipyard 1914, which carried the memory of the boats that once launched to the Pearl River. The project is located in a city known for its flat terrain, so the old slip was already like a constructed landscape before the architecture arrived.
Kengo Kuma’s intervention keeps this slope in view and then extends it upwards through a layer roof where people can climb, pause and look back towards the water.
The recently completed 1914 Shipyard transforms the former industrial area into a 4,400 square meter mixed-use complex for art, retail, cafes and cultural programming.
Its name refers to the year the yard was founded, while its shape takes shape around the ramp once used to guide ships down the river. The building works with this legacy infrastructure rather than flattening it, treating the slipway as circulation and memory.
images © Eiichi Kano
Kengo Kuma’s built landscape in Guangzhou
THE group at Kengo Kuma and Associates builds from the slope of the former Guangzhou shipyard with a series of inclined slabs that rise like a new piece of land. Below them, rooms of different sizes are placed in the section, giving the complex an inner life shaped by the upper ceiling. A straight axis runs through the glazing, keeping the previous launch path legible through the new building. It’s a simple move, but powerful. The shipyard’s past remains visible as a line in space.
The roof becomes the main public gesture of the project. Rather than reading as a cap, it acts as a ground plane that rises into the air, with steps and gentle slopes that cause movement throughout the building. As visitors climb, the view gradually opens up to the Pearl River and the dense city beyond. The architecture transforms a piece of industrial infrastructure into a lookout, giving the space a new urban rhythm without erasing the shape that preceded it.
Shipyard 1914 transforms a former Guangzhou shipyard into a cultural and commercial complex
a roof of volcanic stone
The choice of material gives the project much of its character, as the roof surface is covered in porous reddish-brown volcanic stone, chosen for its granular texture and earthy weight. Against the surrounding high-rises, the stone brings a rougher register to the site. It makes the roof feel closer to the landscape than the envelope, a surface that can be touched, crossed and occupied.
Shipyard 1914 joins a wider conversation about how post-industrial sites can carry their stories forward through use, parts and material. Kuma’s design avoids treating maintenance as a frozen state. Here, the old slipway becomes a path, a roof and a way to see Guangzhou from the edge of the river. The work’s strongest move is also its most direct: it lets the act of launching ships remain present, even as the site turns to culture and public life.
Kengo Kuma and Associates preserves the historical drift of the site as the main gesture of the project
the building rises from a slip that was once used to launch ships up the Pearl River
a sloping roof transforms the former industrial infrastructure into a walkable public landscape
