CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM
CULTURAL, CIVIC
Client: Nanchong City
Location: Nanchong, China
Program: Exhibition, art museum, cafe, retail, auditorium
Area: 1,798 m² (19,355 ft²)
Status: Competition, concept, first prize
Location: Nanchong, China
Program: Exhibition, art museum, cafe, retail, auditorium
Area: 1,798 m² (19,355 ft²)
Status: Competition, concept, first prize
The Contemporary Art Museum reimagines an architectural archetype—the acropolis, and questions “what is a ‘landmark’ in a society that relates to nature symbiotically as opposed to hierarchically?”
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/87d9ddb023171436c637eb56af416815a3d84855e3ba31c056c104857689e9f3/121.jpg)
PRESERVE THE SILHOUETTE OF THE EXISTING RIDGELINE WHILE ASSERTING A SKYLINE
Respectfully altering yet intimately integrated into its site, the museum preserves the silhouette of its hilltop’s existing ridgeline while asserting a skyline inspired by the region’s terraced agricultural ponds. Intersecting umbrella canopies, each with a different height, respond to the site’s topographic contours and sculpt the diverse character of the museum’s interior spaces.
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fd102ba1e4ad02f4e425e13266c648e8faeff63d8770588ce6f2c352d37d39d1/24.05.08_CAM-Plan_NY.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/3289bf936a02aa3736ae3818787b4aff454505be95c43d6f430d214f2c25dd62/4.jpg)
![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/20f2eaab149694bde609f3e7b347cbbaf0d8c1bbe15816c327cbbd405b6d3693/3.jpg)
CANOPIES BLURRING BOUNDARIES WITH STRUCTURAL AND SPATIAL LOGIC
Like a mushroom or lily pad, each canopy rises from a central column that organically expands into a flared capital, which doubles as a ceiling internally and a roof garden externally. Clustered into a ‘forest’, the canopies not only blur boundaries between inside and out via glass enclosures, but also from its underlying structural and spatial logic.![](https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/fed4a0e0af275999b314057f057d8fe46cac1fc306c7976449a45aed38a91e76/2.jpg)
Team: Andrew Heid,
Chengliang Li,
Christopher Purpura,
Guangyu
Collaborators: China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, ECOLAND, agenceTER, Zijing Wang, Naiding Yao
Collaborators: China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, ECOLAND, agenceTER, Zijing Wang, Naiding Yao
Distinctions: First prize