At the same time, the design of the green and shaded areas themselves means that the outdoor spaces naturally lend themselves to events, community gatherings, or merely everyday meetings. People can wander around these suspended platforms to their heart’s content, take a break in the green squares ensconced in the gaps, and walk between the blocks with different functions. This has fostered the formation of raised squares: alternative routes that also provide stunning views over the city and the park, allowing people to pass through the museum as part of their daily journeys. Meanwhile, the upper floors - which can be reached via a system of staircases - are characterised by pedestrian walkways and dominating ledges, not restricted to those entering the museum’s spaces, but rather public and freely accessible to all. In addition, the decision to raise many of the volumes on pillars has effectively freed up the street level for foot traffic and light vehicles, creating user-friendly access paths between the residential area and the park. Instead of a uniform structure, these form a multifaceted spatial system in which the architecture is the first hint of the functional polyphony to be found within. The total surface area - an incredible 74,000 square metres - is distributed over specific units of different sizes which, despite being stacked one on top of the other, maintain their formal autonomy. Approaching it, however, the composition reveals itself to be significantly more open and permeable, colonised by green roofs and squares which break up the density of the volume. In contrast with the relatively strict zoning of the surrounding area, the Pingshan Art Museum has been designed specifically to combine exhibition galleries, a theatre, a library, commercial spaces and natural environments, making for an active coexistence between cultural experiences, entertainment and everyday enjoyment of the city.įrom a tectonic point of view, the museum is an imposing complex of concrete beams and slabs and vast curtain walls, giving it a highly impactful presence in its context when viewed from a distance. The museum sits aligned with the north-south axis that separates these two zones and was conceived with a view to bringing them together, creating covered yet open spaces - urban voids designed to sit at different heights to serve as meeting places for people. The new design undertakes a radical decomposition of said idea through overlapping levels and structures that are separate, juxtaposed and staggered, leaving gaps that are filled by a carefully designed natural element.īuilt on a site located north of central Pingshan, the museum’s west side features a residential settlement characterised by soaring towers, whilst the east side is home to a vast urban park with pools of water. Indeed, the architectural solution proposed by Vector Architects calls into question the philosophy of the museum as a self-enclosed megastructure: an idea that has characterised a great many episodes in recent history. Perhaps the greatest influence on the jury’s decision was their appreciation for a proposal that did not limit itself to envisaging new exhibition spaces, instead rethinking the very meaning of a cultural space itself as part of the process of urbanisation of a city. With the tender announced in 2013, the competition for the “Pingshan Cultural Village” saw the consortium headed up by architect Dong Gong of Vector Architects awarded the project from a shortlist of eight carefully-selected teams. It is one of the most interesting examples of the recent evolution in the concept of the museum in China, which has the power to convey the life of an entire district around its architecture. The Pingshan Art Museum is the result of an international competition promoted by the Management Committee of Pingshan New District, Shenzhen China Merchants Real Estate, and the Shenzhen Municipal Planning and Local Resources Committee.
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