Exclusive Beijing Members Club by Superimpose Architecture

Designed by New York-based practice Kohn Pedersen Fox, with an award-winning brand concept by American agency Wolff Olins, the new Genisis Beijing building is impressive for a list of reasons. Conceived of and led by academic and social policy expert Dr. Whitney Duan, the building’s greater mission is to help to repair the loss of community in Chinese society. Though, it feels a little more like a place to spot a James Bond villain: the building is home to a Bulgari Hotel with interiors by Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and Partners, a garden created by Swiss landscape architect and collector of trees, Enzo Enea—oh and a museum, designed by 1995 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, Tadao Ando.

So then, a top-floor private club with a secret tea room and wine cellar doesn’t seem so farfetched for Genesis. Pieced together by Beijing-based Superimpose Architecture, the floor is divided into two distinct worlds—an office space and the private club, only accessible to members via a hidden pivot-door. Inside are sprawling, vertigo-inducing views across Beijing’s embassy and financial district, reflected in golden stainless steel walls.

Panels of dark mirrored glass disguise a 25 sqm wine cellar or ‘sky cellar’, which houses some 500 bottles from a few of the world’s best wine regions—Bordeaux, Rhone Valley, Burgundy, Napa Valley, Mosel, and Barolo. An abstract map of the regions rendered in concrete ash mud and stainless steel lies underneath a glass floor. Gold-hued stainless steel shelves are coated with an acrylic base to allow for different styles of storage—stacked or inclined. The acrylic also allows for light to scatter gently through the cellar.