Photographing Chengdu’s Dollhouse Apartments in Golden Hour

Photographing Chengdu’s Dollhouse Apartments in Golden Hour

[Music] [Applause] [Music] It was just two lovers sitting in the car listening to blonde falling for each other. Pink and orange skies.

Photographing Chengdu’s architecturally fascinating ‘dollhouse’ apartments was a bit of a journey! With very little information to go off, save for its name (Manhattan Nature), we took a Didi to the location. However, the apartments are actually hidden within an inner courtyard that is a little ways off from where you would be dropped off on the map. Very few local residents seemed to know what we were talking about even when I showed them the videos, and we actually went around in circles in the area before finally finding it.

Unlike what appeared in the photos, where I thought I saw some cafes and commercial areas, the buildings are predominantly residential and we were the only tourists there. We couldn’t really figure out how to get up to the Manhattan Nature apartments themselves without an invitation as there is building security there, and got lucky to enter the opposite building because a passing resident kindly let us up to the upper floors floors there, where there was a common space to look across the courtyard and see the iconic angle of all the apartments laid out in front of you.

I think this is a beautiful piece of modern architecture, allowing people the luxury of a double height apartment and also giving them space in ‘front’ of their living quarters to have a courtyard, facade, greenery and make each allotment feel more private and house-like. It was fascinating to see the different ways people chose to utilise the space and I would love to see this influence brought into more housing design, such as in Australia. 

While very lucky to have gotten a few shots in golden hour, this definitely isn’t your regular tourist attraction so I would visit with caution and be respectful of the peace of the residents.

Tried a new photo editing style inspired by @jamtuna’s dramatic filmic chiaroscuro 🤌🏻✨

#chengdu #chinatravel #architecture #成都 #中国旅游 #中国 #manhattannature