New tower of Eastern Huli District. Xiamen Airlines Headquarters by Foster + Partners

The architecture studio Foster + Partners has completed the Xiamen Airlines headquarters tower that belongs to the new complex planned by the studio, which includes an adjacent hotel tower and Xiamen Airlines Plaza.

The project located in the heart of the Xiamen financial center masterplan, in the eastern district of Huli, has a large 24-meter-high entrance hall that connects it visually and physically with the plaza, which will be the union between the headquarters and hotel.

Xiamen Airlines Headquarters by Foster + Partners. Photograph by zhangchao.

Among the spaces designed by Foster + Partners we find elevated gardens, restaurants, bars and exhibition areas on multiple levels. The placement of the elevator cores on the exterior of the tower gives the structure a unique shape and flexible programming in an open floor plan, in addition to providing the building with exceptional views and thus allowing greater connectivity with the exterior.

The divided form of the tower transmits movement and its materiality is strongly expressed. Metal panels reflect different light conditions, while anodized aluminum adds texture and depth. The building's exterior glass elevator shafts enliven the northwest elevation, making the tower a dynamic focal point from the freeway.

Xiamen Airlines Headquarters by Foster + Partners. Photograph by zhangchao.

Project description by Foster + Partners

Xiamen Airlines Headquarters tower is located at the heart of Xiamen Cross-strait Financial Centre Masterplan in the Eastern Huli District. The headquarters is part of a new complex designed by the practice, including an adjacent hotel tower and Xiamen Airlines Plaza, which is a new civic space for the city. The two towers are directly connected by the plaza and act as a marker for the whole district.

Inspired by the Wuyi Mountains and iconic paintings of the Chinese rock mountains, the new headquarters rises vertically through the landscape, creating a dynamic composition that is instantly recognisable. The tower’s split form conveys movement, and its materiality is strongly expressed. Metal panelling reflects varying light conditions, while anodised aluminium adds texture and depth. The building’s expressed glass lift shafts animate the north-western elevation, making the tower a dynamic focal point from the highway.

Xiamen Airlines Headquarters by Foster + Partners. Photograph by zhangchao.

Placing the lift cores on the outside of the tower gives the structure a unique form and a flexible, open floorplate. This approach is an evolution of the conventional office layout, to allow more connectivity with the outside, whilst maximising views and daylight via large bay windows.

The entrance lobby is a grand, 24-metre-tall space that visually and physically connects with the plaza at the heart of the masterplan. The plaza links together the headquarters and the hotel, creating a more inclusive arrival experience for all. The headquarters features sky gardens, restaurants, bars, and exhibition areas across multiple levels.

Xiamen Airlines Headquarters by Foster + Partners. Photograph by Luo Canhui.

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More information

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Architects

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Foster + Partners.

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Dates

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2024.

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Location

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Eastern Huli District, Xiamen, China.

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Photography

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zhangchao.
Luo Canhui.

NORMAN FOSTER

Norman Foster is considered by many to be the most prominent architect in Britain. He won the 1999 Pritzker Architecture Prize and the 2009 Príncipe de Asturias de las Artes Prize.

Lord Foster rebuilt the Reichstag as a new German Parliament in Berlin and designed a contemporary Great Court for the British Museum. He linked St. Paul's Cathedral to the Tate Modern with the Millennium Bridge, a steel footbridge across the Thames. He designed the Hearst Corporation Building in Manhattan, at 57th Street and Eighth Avenue.

He was born in Manchester, England, in 1935. Among his firm’s many other projects are London’s City Hall, the Bilbao Metro in Spain, the Canary Wharf Underground Station in London and the renovated courtyard of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

In the 1970s, Lord Foster was one of the most visible practitioners of high-tech architecture that fetishized machine culture. His triumphant 1986 Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building, conceived as a kit-of-parts plugged into a towering steel frame, was capitalism's answer to the populist Pompidou Center in Paris.

Nicolai Ouroussoff, The Times’s architecture critic, has written that although Lord Foster’s work has become sleeker and more predictable in recent years, his forms are always driven by an internal structural logic, and they treat their surroundings with a refreshing bluntness.

Awarded the Prince of Asturias of the Arts 2009.

Published on: April 1, 2024

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