Liangzhu Culture Museum in China by David Chipperfield Architects

David Chipperfield Architects keep us writing about their work by turning out building after building of beautiful design, well thought out architecture and simple solutions to the respective demands of each project. This is the case with the Liangzhu Culture Museum, located within the Liangzhu Cultural Village in in a suburb of the provincial capital Hangzhou in China.

Liangzhu Site, located to the northwest of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, about 15 kilometres from the centre of the city, is a famous archaeological site dating from the late Neolithic Age. Liangzhu culture, also known as the Jade culture (c3000 BC), named after the site, is one of the most important archaeological cultures in China. So the museum hosting the findings of this era is of great importance to the people of China but also of the world: the particular site is also considered a world heritage site by Unesco.

The building is set on a lake and connected via bridges to the park surrounding it. Consisted of a series of different size cuboids, it has a sculptural quality that reveals itself gradually as the visitor approaches the museum through the park landscape. The museum is composed of four bar-formed volumes made of Iranian travertine stone, equal in width (all are 18m wide) but varying in height.

Each volume contains an interior courtyard. These landscaped spaces link the exhibition halls together while simultaneously inviting the visitor to linger and relax. Despite the linearity of the exhibition halls, due to the shapes involved in it's design, they enable a variety of individual tour routes through the museum, due to the interior courtyards connecting them.

To the south of the museum is an island with an exhibition area, which is accessed from the main museum building through a bridge. The edges of the surrounding landscape, planted with dense woods, allow only a few directed views into the park.

The entrance hall can be reached through a courtyard, the centrepiece of which is a reception desk of Ipe wood, lit from above. The materials selected for this particular project are solid ones that age well, like Ipe wood and travertine stone.A fitting choice for a building housing such an exquisite treasure of mankind.

 

Client: Zhejiang Vanke Narada Real Estate Group Co., Ltd.

Project Date: 2003

Completion: June 2007

Opening: October 2008

Architect: David Chipperfield Architects Principal: David Chipperfield Director: Mark Randel Project Architect: Annette Flohrschütz Project Team: Libin Chen, Marcus Mathias, Christof Piaskowski, Arndt Weiss, Liping Xu

Gross floor area: 9.500 m²

Landscape Design: Levin Monsigny Landschaftsarchitekten

Exhibition designer: Guangdong Jimei Design and Engineering Co.

Graphics: Ute Zscharnt in collaboration with SV Associates, Andrew Mark Lawrence, Nancy Chen Si Min

Local Architect: ZTUDI The Architectural Design and Research Institute Zhejiang University of Technology

Photographs: Christian Richters

Comments

[KMP Modern Furniture]

The lines are perfect, the material looks great.

I can see depent on the time of the day, the Sun makes the building to have different colors.