Location: Taiyuan, China.

Architect: Vector Architects.

Changjiang Art Museum is a cultural space located in Changjiang village, Shanxi Province, China. The village was demolished in 2016 to make way for urban development, and the museum aims to commemorate the traces and atmosphere of the human construction that once existed on this land. The museum is situated at the southern edge of a newly constructed residential community, adjacent to the urban grid, and the major concern is to make it function as a linkage between the community and the city. The galleries of the museum are arranged around a light well, which serves as the organizing “anchor” for all the spaces. Natural light is filtered and softened by the skylights, penetrating through a grid of 1.9 x 1.9 square meter waffle beam and filling the interior with a homogeneous and immersive light quality. The exterior staircase that connects the second through fourth floors, the protruding corner window on the fourth floor, and a southwest-facing vertical window on the same floor all provide museum visitors with glimpses of the contemporary cityscape of Taiyuan. The museum is like a solid block of brick, occupying a specific space-time coordinate, bearing witness silently and attentively to the clamorous and ever-changing city around it. The building area is 3,932m2, and the construction period was from 2017.03 to 2019.09.

Photo credit: Chen Hao.