Location: Jiangsu, China.
Architect: Ennead Architects.
Ennead Architects, the internationally renowned architecture firm, revealed its competition-winning design for the proposed Wuxi Art Museum in the historic port city of Wuxi, China. Set within Shangxianhe Wetland Park, the museum’s site design and architectural form closely connect and integrate the museum experience with the natural environment. It is conceived as a symbolic Taihu Scholar Stone. This contemplative and intricate spatial structure sits quietly as a meditative object amidst the broader natural context. Ennead worked with landscape architecture firm West 8 to create an integrated relationship between the surrounding landscape and architecture, utilizing a rich composition of solid and void. Flexible green space for an outdoor amphitheatre allows visitors to enjoy art projections, movie screenings and performances.
The interior experience of the Wuxi Museum is conceived as a varied sequence of infinite possibilities, from the strategic integration of art to the ever-changing views out to the landscape, from the carefully illuminated and flexible gallery spaces to the anchor of the central courtyard space, and from the amenity spaces to the upper-level terraces. At its main entry, the museum welcomes visitors with an embracing civic plaza and a lily-filled waterscape for reflection and tranquillity. Perforations in the stone facade provide filtered light into the museum, and when combined with the slightly translucent moments of the glass curtain wall, the two types of openings create a presence that transforms from day to night. Lighting also contributes to the experience, using unique facade perforation and texture to introduce light and highlight the shaping of the limestone facade.