Location: Guangzhou, China.

Architect: Rocco Design Architects Ltd.

The Guangdong Museum in Guangzhou, China, is a cultural landmark building designed by Rocco Design Architects Ltd. The five-storey museum has a total floor area of approximately 67,000 square metres and is designed to house a great variety of fascinating objects of treasure. The museum is also designed as a treasured object of great fascination that contemplates to become an identifiable cultural icon giving the visitors a memorable tour and experience of the local provincial history and traditional wisdom as well as contributing to the appreciation and enhancement of cultural identity of the city. The Museum’s spatial arrangement takes its inspiration from the legendary concentric ivory balls carving. Each carving slices through the box and reveals different layers and varying degrees of transparency within the interiors forming interesting spatial patterns and luring visitors through its exhibits inside. The interweaving of interior space pockets also reveal the intricate relationship between the visual and physical connections and separation of the atrium corridor, the individual exhibition halls, and the back-of-house service areas. The overall treatment of the main façade is also based on the analogy of ivory ball. Using materials such as aluminium panels fritted glass and GRC panels each elevation is uniquely designed with different geometric voids recessed into the building mass. In order to achieve a smooth transition between the museum and the adjoining landscape, an undulating landscape deck is introduced underneath the elevated museum box metaphorically symbolizing a silk cloth unwrapping a much treasured piece of artwork.

Photo credit: MARCEL LAM.