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NANJING SIFANG ART MUSEUM

Nanjing, People's Republic of China. 2013

Description +

PROGRAM: museum complex with galleries, tea room, bookstore, and a curator's residence

CLIENT: Nanjing Foshou Lake Architecture and Art Developments Ltd

SIZE: 30,000 sq ft

STATUS: Complete

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, expanses of mist and water, which characterize the deep alternating spatial mysteries of the composition of 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. This visual axis creates a linkage back to the great Ming Dynasty capital city.

Ecological Innovation +

Geothermal heating and cooling
Local bamboo used in bamboo-formed concrete

Videos +

  • Sifang Art Museum: A Conversation with Steven Holl
  • Sifang Art Museum
  • Sifang Art Museum

Credits +

  • architect

    - Steven Holl Architects

    Steven Holl, Li Hu (design architect)

    Li Hu (partner in charge)

    Hideki Hirahara (associate-in-charge)

    Clark Manning, Daijiro Nakayama (project architect)

    Joseph Kan, JongSeo Lee, Pei Shyun Lee, Tz-Li Lin, Richard Liu, Sarah Nichols (project team)

    - Architectural Design Institute, Nanjing University

  • structural consultant

    - Guy Nordenson and Associates

  • lighting design

    - L'Observatoire International

News +


  • 2015 10/05 Nanjing Sifang Art Park: An architectural wonderland hidden in a Chinese forest
  • 2015 01/01 Nanjing Sifang Art Museum
  • 2011 07/01 Nanjing Perspectives
  • 2015 10/06 Sifang Art Museum shortlisted in 2015 Leading Culture Destinations Awards
  • 2013 11/02 Steven Holl Architects celebrates the opening of the Sifang Art Museum in Nanjing
  • 2013 10/23 Nanjing Sifang Art Museum to Open on November 2
  • 2014 03/11 Steven Holl Architects presents two films on the Sifang Art Museum
  • 2005 02/01 Contemporary Art & Architecture Museum by Steven Holl Architects breaks ground in Nanjing.
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