This “floating” artwork and literary museum by American studio OLI Architecture is housed in a grouping of textured concrete blocks, which are elevated above a lake in China’s Zhejiang Province (+ slideshow).
The New York firm designed the Mu Xin Art Museum for Yuanbao lake in Wuzhen – a town at one particular finish of China’s Grand Canal, which is dubbed the Venice of the East for its network of off-shoot canals, lakes and waterfront houses.
The museum is made up of eight galleries, five of which are committed to the abstract artwork and writing of the museum’s namesake, Mu Xin, who was born in Wuzhen but later on immigrated to America.
Two storeys of the cast in-situ concrete structure sit over the surface of the lake, while a third level featuring a water backyard is submerged below – generating the constructing seem to float. David Chipperfield Architects utilized the very same technique to assistance a “village” of grey stone houses in nearby marshland.
“At the starting of this task, we considered carefully about the area and siting of the museum,” said studio founders Hiroshi Okamoto and Bing Lin. “In Wuzhen, one experiences a dense landscape of centuries outdated canals, streets, markets, courtyards, bridges and verandas.”
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“Taking a cue from the urban fabric of this 1,000-yr-outdated ancient water town, the museum itself is a landscape of intersecting experiences,” they extra.
The museum’s concrete walls are covered in linear indentations, each inside and out. A tiled footbridge connects the building’s triple-storey entrance hall to the land.
The volumes at the rear have the galleries. Some intersect, while other people are linked by “streets” which lead to rock gardens or steps that lead down to the surface of the lake – a well-liked boating location.
“Our style of this museum is inspired by the complexity of the artist’s perform, as nicely as his creating, which was shaped by his lifelong existence amongst cultures, both in his native and adoptive countries,” said Okamoto and Lin.
“The reflection of Mu Xin’s function is illustrated via the design of the constructing as seen in the series of interconnected floating rooms and the concrete exterior, which evokes gentle watercolour brush strokes.”
Galleries are lit by skylights and massive windows, which are covered by slatted screens that cast stripy shadows across the inner walls.
Slender strip lights on the ceiling echo the texture of the concrete wall surfaces. Other elements have been produced using Mongolian black granite and walnut wood.
Mu Xin’s manuscripts are presented on black plinths and in glass vitrines inside the galleries.
Other services contain a bookshop and library, cafe, offices, auditorium, assortment storage and temporary exhibition spaces.
A expanding amount of galleries and museums by huge-title architects are popping up along China’s eastern coast. Between them is a tile-covered folk-artwork museum in Hangzhou by Kengo Kuma, Jean Nouvel’s National Museum of China in Beijing and a cultural centre with a looping bridge in Qingdao by Steven Holl.
Undertaking credits:
Architecture: OLI Architecture
Nearby architect: Suzhou Huazao Architectural Layout
Style partner: AIA
Managing companion: Bing Lin
Project crew: Hiroshi Okamoto, Fabian Servagnat, Steve Hopkins, Dongshin Lee, Muzhi Chen, Michael Zhao, Grace Kim, Michael Pryor, S J Kwon, Remi Bun, Jerry Lu
Interior layout: Architecte DPLG
Web site representative: Po Chen
Structural and MEP engineer: Suzhou Huazao Architectural Design and style
Basic contractor: Zhejiang Jujiang Group
Concrete: Reginald Hough Associates
Lighting: Zack Zanolli
Facade: KT Facade Consultants, RaymeKuniyuki
Acoustics: Xu-Acoustique
Fountain: Fountain Folks
Rockscape: Liu Dan
Basement prepare – click for bigger picture 
Ground floor strategy – click for more substantial image 
First floor plan – click for larger picture 
Roof prepare – click for greater picture 
Section a single – click for larger image 
Segment two – click for bigger picture 
