Cuisuba Yi Cultural & Visitor Center
 On a northwestern Guizhou typical plateau, placed at an altitude of above 2,000 meters in-between untouched grassland hills and mountains, stands the Cuisuba Yi Cultural & Visitor Center. Completed in March 2021, the center was conceived as a landmark to pay homage to the Yi people, an ethnic minority group mainly residing in the mountainous regions and rural areas of South-West China. The building grows from a slope with a maximum inclination of 20 degrees, surrounded by mountains all around.
Commissioned by the Dafang County Tourism Development Office in order to provide the basic structure to promote tourism in the area, the center aims to become a symbolic landmark celebrating Yi culture. Photography by © Jingsong Xie
West-line Studio has a long history in building cultural centers in Guizhou province influenced by local ethnic minorities; the practice?s approach has always been characterized by a deep research on the peculiar cultural aspects of a particular community, which can result in rites, fabrics, patterns, construction techniques, festivals, and pictograms, in order to bring some of these unique features into the design, creating a strong bond with local culture and collective memory.
For thousands of years, the Yi people have been considering the plateau a sacred place where to worship heaven and earth and celebrate the ?Torch Festival?, one of their main holidays. The festival commemorates a famous Yi wrestler who...