These new shots by photography duo Hufton + Crow depict the Long Museum West Bund – a contemporary art gallery in Shanghai developed all around an industrial framework when used for unloading huge quantities of coal .
The museum – one of 15 architecture projects shortlisted for the Style Museum’s 2015 Patterns of the Year awards – was designed by Shanghai firm Atelier Deshaus, led by architect Liu Yichun.
Liu’s strategy for the project was to develop a modern building that also referenced the background of its internet site, which became a wharf for coal transportation in the 1950s but had most just lately housed an underground car park.
The most prominent remnant of the site’s industrial heritage was the coal-hopper unloading bridge. Measuring 110 metres lengthy, ten metres wide and eight metres high, it spanned the site on a north-west to south-west trajectory.
Rather than demolishing this, or even developing alongside it, Liu chose to make the framework the centre of his building. Not only does it frame the museum’s entrance, it accommodates a temporary exhibition space.
“Against the charmless basement slab, the conveyer loading bridge built in the 50s, a relic of Shanghai’s industrial culture, increasingly displayed a loneliness and solitude,” explained the architect.
“I do not think that the engineers when they designed this platform ever had believed about the aesthetic facet,” he explained.
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“However, a few decades later, this platform became a pure visual and spatial landscape construct, a lovely object, when it lost its original perform.”
The current basement auto park dictated a structural grid of 8.4-metre intervals, delivering the project with its greatest constraint. To get around this, Liu produced a “free-wall prepare”, enabling rooms to flow into 1 another.
“Today, for most folks, visiting a museum no longer signifies a sequential contemplation of one area following an additional,” he said.
“Specifically for contemporary artwork, its exhibition, its becoming viewed, even its procedure of currently being produced all of them anticipate an uncertainty,” he continued. “Viewing an art piece then is to let the entire body move with a consciousness, to realise a sense of freedom, which is the essential cause why we choose the totally free wall prepare.”
Architecturally the building’s kind was produced by the repetition of one particular component, referred to as the “vault umbrella”. It comprises a concrete column that curves out towards the best, so that it appears like separated halves of an arch.
These are dozens of these aspects throughout the creating. Some stretch all the way to the roof, even though other people frame exhibition spaces on the ground floor. But they all line up with the present structural grid.
“In this structural transition, the freedom of wall positioning is vital,” explained Liu. “This freedom is not only about area, but also about direction, so this umbrella-shaped cantilever extending from the wall became the undoubted selection.”
“It was like finishing a puzzle – we desired the roof to be a total cover, the lobby to be a extended span space, B1 gallery to be a spirally downward room, 2nd floor to be an open courtyard, and also have to consider into account the chance of multiple and single routes of exhibition,” he added.
There are 3 major storeys defined inside of the building – a ground floor, a very first floor and a basement.
Contemporary art galleries are found on all three levels, but the basement also contains exhibition spaces for more historic collections.
The archive also occupies the basement, even though the upper degree accommodates an auditorium and a restaurant overlooking the river.
Photography is by Hufton + Crow.
Undertaking credits:
Architects: Atelier Deshaus
Architect in charge: Liu Yichun, Chen Yifeng
Design group: Liu Yichun, Chen Yifeng, Wang Longhai, Wang Weishi, Wu Zhenghui, Wang Xuepei, Chen Kun
Framework, electrical & mechanical engineer: Tongji Architectural Style
Construction, electrical & mechanical style crew: Chao Si, Zhang Zhun, Shao Xiaojian, Shao Zhe, Zhang Ying, Shi You, Li Weijiang, Kuang Xingyu, Zhou Zhili
Lighting layout: Shanghai Guangyu Lighting Design
Consumer: Shanghai Xuhui Waterfront Advancement
Axonometric diagram 
Basement strategy 
Ground floor plan 
1st floor strategy 
Part 1 
Part two Dezeen
