Chengdu Museum
Subscribe now to instantly view this image
Subscribe to the Architects’ Journal (AJ) for instant access to the AJ Buildings Library, an online database of nearly 2,000 exemplar buildings in photographs, plans, elevations and details.
Already a subscriber? Sign in
The client’s focus was visual impact and the creation of a landmark
Arch-Exist photography Download Original
Working with local partner Pansolution International, Sutherland Hussey Harris has created a gateway to the Chinese city of Chengdu.
SHH (then called Sutherland Hussey Architects) won the Chengdu Museum design competition with Pansolution, a young Chinese practice. The size of the museum holds symbolic value (the original brief was for 80,000m2), reflecting the city’s ambitions to build at a grand scale. The brief had no clear programme requirements; the client’s focus was visual impact and the creation of a landmark.
In Chinese culture, the symbolic holds value not through literal visual representation but, as in the art of calligraphy, through more abstract and spiritual connections. A client is likely to give higher priority to the symbolic value of a building than to its programme. SHH’s response to this challenge was to introduce into the design a mask or veil, a translucent alloy mesh, as a reference to one of the museum’s most important local artefacts, a gold mask. The building’s ‘golden mask’ (in fact brass) wraps around the body of the museum and continues over the roof.
The long narrow site is exploited using all the public areas to maximise a dramatic relationship with the new square. The remaining façades consequently enclose the largely hermetic exhibition halls; these are represented as a giant crafted artefact in the city cloaked in a precious skin of copper alloy rigorously profiled to play with light, shade and texture while accommodating all the technical requirements for ventilation grilles. The form envelopes a new undercover outdoor public space – a monumental gateway through the building, offering a large outdoor public space.
Data
- Begun: Dec 2009
- Completed: Mar 2016
- Floor area: 65,000m2
- Sector: Arts and culture
- Total cost: £120M
- Procurement: Engineering Survey, Architectural Design and Special Design
- Address: 18 Shi'erqiao Road, CaoTang CanYin YuLeQuan, Qingyang Qu, Chengdu, 610072, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Sutherland Hussey Harris and Pansolution International
- Project architect: Charlie Sutherland
- Client: Chengdu Museum & Chengdu Administration of Culture
- Executive architect: Sutherland Hussey Harris
- Structural engineer: China Aviation Planning and Design Institute
- M&E consultant: China Aviation Planning and Design Institute
- interior designer: Beijing Truebond Building Decoration Engineer
- Main contractor: China Construction Second Engineering Bureau
- Project manager: The Municipal Department for Unified Construction of Civic Buildings in Chengdu
- CDM Co-ordinator: The Municipal Department for Unified Construction of Civic Buildings in Chengdu
- Approved building inspector : Chengdu Urban and Rural Construction Commission
- CAD software used: Microstation and AutoCAD
AJBL Sponsor
VMZINC
VMZINC has almost two centuries experience of manufacturing a wide range of rolled zinc products for use in construction