Nanjing Building, Steven Holl Architecture, Image, Design, Architect, Development
Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture, China : Information
Chinese Museum Project - design by Steven Holl Architects
19 Apr 2011
Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture
China
2003-10
Steven Holl Architects
Construction completed and opening this summer.
pictures : Iwan Baan
Perspective is the fundamental historic difference between Western and Chinese painting. After the 13th Century, Western painting developed vanishing points in fixed perspective. Chinese painters, although aware of perspective, rejected the single-vanishing point method, instead producing landscapes with “parallel perspectives” in which the viewer travels within the painting.
pictures : Shu He
The new museum is sited at the gateway to the Contemporary International Practical Exhibition of Architecture in the lush green landscape of the Pearl Spring near Nanjing, China. The museum explores the shifting viewpoints, layers of space, and expanses of mist and water, which characterize the deep alternating spatial mysteries of early Chinese painting. The museum is formed by a “field” of parallel perspective spaces and garden walls in black bamboo-formed concrete over which a light “figure” hovers. The straight passages on the ground level gradually turn into the winding passage of the figure above. The upper gallery, suspended high in the air, unwraps in a clockwise turning sequence and culminates at “in-position” viewing of the city of Nanjing in the distance. The meaning of this rural site becomes urban through this visual axis to the great Ming Dynasty capital city, Nanjing.

photos : Steven Holl Architects
The courtyard is paved in recycled Old Hutong bricks from the destroyed courtyards in the center of Nanjing. Limiting the colors of the museum to black and white connects it to the ancient paintings, but also gives a background to feature the colors and textures of the artwork and architecture to be exhibited within. Bamboo, previously growing on the site, has been used in bamboo- formed concrete, with a black penetrating stain. The Museum has geothermal cooling and heating, and recycled storm water.

photos : Steven Holl Architects
Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture Nanjing - Building Information
Construction period: Feb 2005 -
Program: museum complex with galleries, tea room, bookstore, and a curator's residence
Building area: 30,000 sqft / 2,787 sqm
Architect: Steven Holl Architects
Steven Holl, Li Hu (design architect)
Hideki Hirahara (associate-in-charge)
Clark Manning, Daijiro Nakayama (project architect) Joseph Kan, JongSeo Lee, Richard Liu, Sarah Nichols (project team)

photos : Steven Holl Architects
Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture images / information from Steven Holl Architects
Previously:
Feb 2008
Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture
Nanjing, China
Design : Steven Holl Architects

picture from architects
Limiting the colors of the museum to black and white connects it to the ancient ink paintings, but also gives a background to feature the colors and textures of the artwork to be exhibited. The walls are of blackened concrete which is formed in bamboo-lined formwork. The texture gives a relief of the cross joints of native bamboo. The upper gallery in double wall translucent membranes allows the shadows of steel support trusses a ghost-like exposure.
The 3000 sq. m. museum's flexible exhibition spaces are complimented by a Tea House and curator's residence facing the south light and re-circulated water of the pond. Geothermal cooling and heating recycled and low embodied energy materials are part of the green building aims of the project.
Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture image / information from Steven Holl Architects
Steven Holl Architects
Nanjing is the capital of Jiangsu Province
Former capital city of Republic of China
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Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture architects : Steven Holl
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Nanjing Museum of Art & Architecture China - page : adrian welch / isabelle lomholt
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