Suzhou Art Museum

Modern transformaion of tradition building style

Suzhou, China 2020

Guosheng Chen, Zhengwei Xia

Individual Work

Suzhou is a city with profound cultural deposits, including classical gardens, ancient buildings and old streets. And the site is located in Suzhou Industrial Area that has been developing rapidly since 1994.

Next to the site is the Xietang Old Street, a famous antique commercial street that attracts visitors from all over the city. The art museum is designed to respond to the history of the site and combine it with the modern way of design.

Site Analysis

Garden

Residential

Museum

Xietangriverhistoricdistrict Bike Parking

Space Strategy

Functional arrangement

The museum is located next to the historic district, offering parking lots for this area. The garden plays a transitional role.

Residential

Xietangriverhistoricdistrict

Auxiliary area

The auxiliary area half-encloses the visiting area, allowing more connections.

Main exhibition

The main exhibition room is a spirling linear space. Visitors can enjoy the view of the river and the historic district at the end.

Temporary exhibition

The temporary exhibition room is the reverse extension of the main exibition room, which is semi-underground.

Space optimization

Smooth the surface for the entrance and extrude new volume, a slope, connect the exit of the main exhibition room and the ground level.

The lecture hall

The volume of the lecture hall is extruded near the starting point of the main exhibition. Its roof can be used as a garden for the visitors.

THE SITE is located in Soochow Industrial Area that has been developing rapidly since 1994. Soochow is a city with profound cultural deposits. There are many classical gardens and ancient buildings here.

SURROUNDING the site is Xietang Old Street, which has a history of more than 760 years and has been rebuilt several times. Nowadays, it is an antique commercial street that has been completely rebuilt in the past few years.

The Concept

The exhibition space is spirling linear space, which reminds the visitors of traditional scroll painting. They can enjoy the art work and the view of Xietang Old Street at the same time.

The new buildings are incompatible with the old street.

Space Evolution

Through addition, overlapping, reduction, and separation, the intersection of two linear spaces, one spirling and one semicircular, generates multiple space types.

We do not want our life to be disturbed by tourists.

Methods

Addition Overlapping

It takes hours to come here.

It is enjoyable to sit by the river.

I feel like I was in a traditional chinese painting.

Prototypes Combination

Exhibition rooms Exhibition rooms Gathering space Exhibition rooms Office rooms

Floor Plan

Explosive View

Second Floor

Ground Floor

Basement Floor

Temporary

The Art Museum creates different exhibition spaces. Through penetration and dislocation of different kinds of space, the design breaks the isolation of different rooms. The whole museum is covered by the roof, which inherits traditional Chinese roofs' basic form and structure but differs from that in material and building techniques. So the new roof can be more stable and versatile to provide more possibilities to the space under the roof.

Internal Courtyard

Details

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