An ‘urban monument’ with diamond-shaped, iran red travertine masonry defines the expanded cultural and retail programme of the Qujiang Museum of Fine Arts Extension in China.
The distinct extension of the Qujiang Museum of Fine Arts in China reinvigorates itself as both an architectural icon and a cultural hub, characterised by the employed material and the colour that dresses its façade design—red travertine—as well as the terracotta red circular volume that stands apart from the rest of the urban fabric of traditional Chinese vernacular on three sides, evocative of their celebrated works such as the Aranya Arts Centre.
The Chinese architecture manifests like a glowing clay lantern, and comprises four parts—the partially sunken ‘Base,’ the ‘Sculptural Walk’ circulation enclosure, the elevated podium ‘Platform,’ and lastly, the ‘Monument.’ Partially sunken from the existing plaza’s level, the base is conceived as a continuous ground for the public, finished with cast-place concrete.
These steps then descend to connect to the sunken piazza. The solid concrete base hosts the former museum spaces and a restaurant which were retained, alongside freshly inserted functions such as retail spaces and public restrooms, complementing the activities of the adjacent pedestrian street.
The elevation is composed of diamond-shaped red travertine masonry units arranged at regular intervals that let in light into the museum
The ‘Platform’ hovers just above the sunken base, expressed through a post and lintel construction, while a grid of stone columns and glass curtain walls supporting a floating roof contains retail spaces. “This retail level is intentionally expressed as a curtain wall to highlight the separation between the carved language of the base, and the circular sculpted massing of the civic potency above,” the Chinese architects relay.
The circular amphitheatre on the roof features a generous round skylight that channels the sun into the ground-floor patio.
The ‘Monument’ sits atop this new, walkable, and sculptural building that plays with geometry and light, housing a lounge on the second floor and an outdoor amphitheatre above. “The elevation is composed of diamond-shaped red travertine masonry units arranged at intervals to accentuate the transmissivity of light,” they explain. Apart from the primal materiality of red travertine, the cultural building also employs small aggregate concrete, blackened steel, clear glass, and stucco in its construction.
The red travertine masonry units filter daylight into the lounge space, which is used for dining and entertainment
On the northwest end of the existing museum building, a passage leads directly to the second-floor outdoor terrace, articulated as a hollowed-out bowl-shaped amphitheatre. The cultural architecture’s terrace then acts as a grand intervention housing the dining and entertainment programs of the lounge, as a strengthened public space.