EMBT and TJAD Turn Shanghai's Century Square into a Green Stage Anchored by a Mirrored Kaleidoscope Pavilion

Century Square sits on East Nanjing Road, one of the most heavily walked commercial streets on the planet. For years it has served as a pause in that stream: a hard, open forecourt for shows, promotions and crowds. With its 2026 renewal, EMBT, led by Benedetta Tagliabue, and co-architect TJAD keep the square's role as a stage. What they change is the ground, the edges and the way the place looks back at the city. The scheme grew from EMBT's 2020 competition win over David Chipperfield Architects. It treats the site as a renovation, not a clean slate, and keeps the existing trees as the starting point.

The interesting move is not the mirrored pavilion on the south side, although it will get most of the photographs. It is the decision to make a commercial plaza behave like a landscape. Planted hills absorb the old trees. A timber tribune rides over those hills. The pavement is drawn as a seabed, a reference to the meaning of Shanghai's name, "on the sea". The pavilion, which the designers call a kaleidoscope, works mostly as an instrument for reflecting all of this. We think that inversion is worth paying attention to: the building serves the ground, not the other way around.

A Plaza Read from Above

From the air, the project explains itself faster than it does at street level. The angular paving field reads as one continuous surface. Tree groves cluster at the edges, and the planted roof of the pavilion continues the green instead of capping it. Set against the towers and the older low-rise blocks around it, the square reads as a deliberate clearing, a place where the grid gives way.

The view where the crowded pedestrian street meets the plaza is the most telling one. The flow of East Nanjing Road does not stop at a threshold; it spills straight onto the patterned ground. That continuity matters. A renewed square that felt like a separate precinct would fail here, and the team seems to have understood that the paving has to welcome the street before it can tell its own story.

The Kaleidoscope as an Instrument

The pavilion is a faceted volume of polished steel and glass with triangular openings. Timber and copper-toned fins run vertically across parts of its skin, and it sits on a concrete and planted base. The competition text described it as a pearl revealed by an opening shell, and the built form carries that idea of a precious object set into a softer setting. In practice, its job is to fracture the surroundings: plane trees, passing scooters and sky all come back off its faces in pieces.

There is a risk in this kind of reflective object on a shopping street. It can easily read as one more piece of retail glamour. What keeps it from tipping over is the mix of materials. The warm fins and the planted base give the mirror something organic to reflect and something tactile to stand on. The program helps too: the building hosts events and shows, and its small interior rooms are meant for looking out at the square and the sky among plants and mirrors.

A Pavement That Remembers the Sea

The paving is the project's quietest gesture and possibly its smartest. Ribbed tiles shift from deep blue to pale blue across the plaza, so the ground reads as water of changing depth. The designers tie it to the nearby port and to an underwater world. Up close, the gradient breaks down into individual tiles with small gaps of white between them. From a distance, it becomes a single tidal field.

This is a cultural reference that does not need a plaque. Thousands of people will cross this surface each day without knowing the etymology of Shanghai. They will still register that they are walking on something closer to a shoreline than a sidewalk. At dusk, the blue holds its tone against the lit hotel facades and the gold dome nearby, so the square keeps its identity even when the surrounding signage takes over.

Hills, Tribunes and Raised Walks

The edges of the square are where the ecological idea becomes physical. Raised walkways of dark timber decking pass among birch trees. A curved brick ramp with stepped edges climbs beside weathering steel and grasses. The brick-paved walks have timber railings that frame views back across the plaza toward the pavilion. These are the green hills from the competition scheme. They carry the tribune, which can work as seating for events and also holds cafés and shops.

What we like here is the change in pace. The plaza floor is open and fast, built for crossing. The hills are slow, built for lingering and watching. Putting commerce inside the tribune is pragmatic. It funds the landscape and gives people a reason to climb, which in turn gives the square an audience on days without a scheduled show.

The Rooftop as a Second Square

The pavilion roof becomes a garden terrace. Red brick paving carries white triangular inlays, clipped shrubs line the edges, and faceted mirrored canopies rise overhead. The project listing names NBK Architectural Terracotta as a manufacturer, and the warm clay tones up here contrast sharply with the cool blue below. From the terrace, you face the curved hotel tower and the gold dome; from inside the faceted enclosure, the plaza spreads out as a full composition.

Giving the public a raised vantage point on East Nanjing Road is an unusual offer. Most elevated views on this street sit behind a shop counter or a ticket gate. This one is part of the square itself, and it lets the city watch its own crowd.

After Dark

At night, the material palette does more work. Copper-edged stair treads, glass balustrades and weathering steel fins catch the light under illuminated trees. A curved pink wall gives one entrance a soft glow. Against the saturated light of the street, these restrained moments read as places for people rather than displays for products, and that is a difficult balance to strike on this road.

Plans and Drawings

The drawings make the narrative explicit. The sections show the terraced tribune with trees and stairs. They also show the tilted tower with its timber screens and rooftop garden, sitting above a large underwater mural that the paving translates into tile. The collage maps place the square within a longer story of river, junk sailboats and steamships. Two site plans compare a version with an expressive pool and fish against a drier, gridded layout, which offers a glimpse of how the watery idea moved from literal water into the ground plane.

Why This Project Matters

Chinese cities are full of commercial plazas designed as empty forecourts, easy to program and easy to clean, but with little to offer outside event days. Century Square shows a credible alternative. It keeps the events, keeps the shops and keeps the crowds. It then adds topography, retained trees, shade and a ground plane with meaning. The listed area of 1,200 m² is modest, and the effect comes from layering and section rather than from sheer size.

It is also a useful case for how a signature studio and a large local design institute can share a project. EMBT's collage-driven, narrative approach is clearly legible, and TJAD's role as co-architect is what turns those collages into a working public space on one of the world's busiest streets. Some will see the mirrored pavilion as the headline. We would point you to the blue floor and the planted hills, which are what will still matter once the novelty of the reflections wears off.

The Ecological Kaleidoscope of East Nanjing Road: Century Square Reborn by EMBT (Benedetta Tagliabue) and TJAD, Shanghai, China. Area: 1,200 m². Completed: 2026. Photography: Runzi Zhu, Songkai Liu.

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