GUOSHEN MUSEUM

CULTURAL LANTERNS
CULTURAL, CIVIC

Client Confidential
Location Qianhai, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China
Program Museum complex with exhibition halls, auditoriums, offices, collection storage, cafés
Area 121,384 m² / 1,306,557 ft²
Status Commission, concept design, 2020

RE-CENTERING THE EXHIBITION

It is a paradox of many museums today that their over-articulation of ancillary amenities and functions, the museum apparatus, obscures their core exhibits. As a result, an overwhelming spectacle frequently disrupts the preservation, appreciation, and study of culture.

By contrast, Cultural Lanterns re-centers the exhibition hall along an innovative topography, where new connections, both horizontal and vertical, open the museum’s curatorial space 360 degrees to the living realm of culture and to the city itself.

From Qianhai Bay, the museum appears as a simple gesture of collective pavilions, dispersed and connected, like foothills echoing the Nanshan Mountains beyond.

A PLINTH REIMAGINED AS A HILL

The brief is poured into a series of individual pavilions connected by a communal plinth, reimagined as a curved hill whose roof becomes a monumental garden. At this level the interiors are reserved solely for exhibition, gently rising and falling up to 15 meters in direct contact with the landscape.

STRATA OF THE MUSEUM

Above and below the garden-exhibition level, the remaining program is organized into strata that follow the topography: research and collection support above; lobbies, ticketing, shop, and cafés below; and parking, services, and storage beneath. China’s rich history opens directly onto Shenzhen and the world.

Team
Andrew Heid, Junwei Li, Christopher Purpura, Guangyu Wang