Location: Tongliao, China.

Architect: Shan Jun Atelier.

The Museum of Traditional Mongolian Medicine is a unique cultural hub that balances the urban and natural environment, nomadic and agricultural civilization, and day and night. The museum is located in Tongliao, where the urban environment ends and the natural landscape begins. To minimize its impact on the environment, the main volume of the museum is buried underground with nine sunken courtyards of different sizes connected to the grassland above-ground. Five vertical volumes sprout from the soil, forming an urban landscape. The museum’s design strategy is in-between floating and anchoring, underground and above-ground, and day and night, just like the intricate balance of the human body advocated by traditional Mongolian medicine. The sunken courtyards and raised volumes are a metaphor for the prototypes of nomadic inhabitation forms like yurts, while the relatively fixed relationship between the courtyards and the towers recalls the anchoring culture of agricultural civilization. The core theory of Mongolian Medicine is focused on the balance and subtle relation of insideness and outsideness, which are called ‘yin-yang’. The circulation is thus organized through this spatial duality, reinterpreting the local spirit. The main hall underground allows visitors to enjoy a free walk inside the exhibition rooms and outside the sunken courtyards. The five towers accommodate temporary exhibitions while providing panorama views to the city and the nature. The museum also reserves a considerable part of the space for the night, as most urban parks in China are still active after the evening. The grass plaza and two sunken courtyards with big steps provide ideal public space all day long. The five towers could be accessed both from underground and above-ground, allowing public space for bars and stores opening to local citizens even when the museum is closed at night. Overall, the Museum of Traditional Mongolian Medicine embodies the endangered cultural identity of local Mongolian people while envisioning a sensitive and respectful solution to the emerging conflicts between globalization and localization.

Photo credit: Tie Lei, Su Tianyu, Du Dikang, Lian Lu.