The dining room is the key space in the home that is not only focused on interaction between people but centered around an event. In homes where entertaining guests is important, it lends itself to the idea of occasion. Even in smaller dwellings, it still functions as a space that comes to life at particular moments of the day, because the Chinese rarely, and never by preference, eat alone. Communal dining is, in fact, the traditional norm in Chinese culture, as evidenced by the cuisine, which is based on shared dishes rather than plated meals, and on the archetypal large circular table that facilitates open and equal conversation. This particular archetype may no longer be the most common in contemporary home design because the changing sizes and distribution of residential spaces tend to favor more rectangular tables, but the legacy of dining as the place and occasion on which to concentrate hospitality to guests remains.
Within this basic form of a table large enough to seat several people and accompanying seating, there is, as we might expect, plenty of room for personal expression, from traditional to minimalist to modern, and from 1930s retro to experimental fusion of Western and Chinese. Notable also is the contemporary trend towards eating less formal meals in the kitchen, which allows even more room for innovation in layout and furniture. This has the added effect of drawing the kitchen into the design concept of the whole home space, and elevating it as a room on which to lavish attention.
Another place for expressing personality and preferences is the study area. This is not a completely essential room, and that alone gives it a special and intimate quality because this is a place for the mind and soul. Moreover, it has a particular significance in Chinese culture because it inherits the tradition of the scholar’s study as a place for reading, learning and for cultivating oneself through meditation. Such formality is lightened in today’s world by including music and television.
The calm elegance of a dining room that blends traditional and contemporary in more ways than one. The cabinet and chairs are antique, the building itself new, though designed on courtyard house principles, while the table, by artist Shao Fan, is a striking fusion of wood and steel.