dongqi Architects transformed an old factory building into the 'ANZHI' concept gallery, Shanghai's first gallery to showcase Buddhist shrines. Located in Shanghai M50 Creative Park, the ‘ANZHI’ concept gallery has been refurbished by dongqi Architects to display Buddhist shrines and souvenirs. In addition to promoting the gallery’s brand identity, the design team was also challenged to create a space to house an interactive art installation – ‘space’ – created by the digital artist Lin Wanshan. The resulting project, therefore, functions both as a religious gallery to showcase Buddhist culture contemporarily, and an ideal place to get immersed in the artwork. The gallery’s architectural concept starts from the centre of a circle, which is slightly deviates from the true geometric centre of the building space. From the centre, rings of concentric circles rise one out of the other, propagating themselves like waves. After intricate calculation, the original two steel pillars of the industrial building are aligned at one ring of the circles. The arch between the pillar becomes a semi-transparent wall that divides the space into different sizes of spaces for shrine exhibition. Several parts of the old arch stairs are deliberately preserved by dongqi, as they bounce into the newly generated centric circles, presenting the collision of the new and the old. The virtual Buddhist shrine installation is located at the centre. Before reaching the centre, visitors need to walk through a circular labyrinth, while exploring the religious pieces displayed along the way. At the same time, visitors could see through multiple layers of semi-transparent boards and meet the eye-catching virtual Buddhist shrine at the centre. By the end of their journey, visitors will stand in front of the virtual Buddha and begin to interact with the artwork in a calm mood. The design team usesthe existing industrial building’s tall floor height, exposes the original timber roof and builds a set of circular steel tracks, which rise along with the angled roof. Such structure creates a new arch space out of the original space. To add to the effect, the original walls of the space were painted black, so as to blur the perception of boundaries. What's more, visitors will encounter with acrylic boards of different sizes. Hanging from steel tracks above, these acrylic boards has surfaces composed of one-way mirrors. The boards inside will tilt further towards the centre than those outside to reflect lights from different angles. Moreover, steel tracks descending from the building roof has another role -- holding spotlights. Due to a series of controlled spotlights, the digital Buddha seems to reflect and refract on the surface of the acrylic boards that form the circles. Before reaching the interior centre, visitors need to walk through a circular labyrinth. Between the gaps, they will see both a reflection of the religious leader and, most importantly, themselves. ANZHI gallery, therefore, is a funhouse mirror of the spiritual kind.