Shaoxing Textile Museum

Located at the heart of Keqiao District in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, the Shaoxing Textile Museum serves as a cultural landmark celebrating the city’s identity as the “International Textile Capital.” Bounded by a canal to the south and a lake to the north, the site is defined by a rich network of waterways and historic urban fabric, symbolizing the confluence of tradition and modernity. The design draws from the physical properties of water and fabric as unifying metaphors that define both the building’s identity and the visitor experience.

Geometry and pattern from the building’s exterior screen extend into the courtyards and interiors, creating a continuous dialogue between inside and out. Throughout, the architecture explores how movement can be implied through form and material, while maintaining clarity and precision in construction.

Programmatically, the museum complex includes Exhibition Halls, a Main Welcome Lobby, the Textile Industry Cultural Center, Fashion Design Hall, Green Ecology Museum, Future Science and Technology Museum, the International Textile Capital Hall, and a Textile Library. Retail spaces, restaurants, sunken gardens, and public plazas further enrich the visitor experience and ensure year-round community activity and engagement.

A central north–south, multi-level exterior court stitches the lake and canal together, forming a continuous spatial thread that connects the city with interior programs and the surrounding waterfront park. This communal core—open to the public—acts as both a circulation nexus and a symbolic gesture weaving together the historical and the natural, craft and commerce, locals and visitors.

The exterior expression is conceived as an assemblage of interlocking stone bars, eroded as if shaped by the flow of water. The resulting curved corners and voids enhance movement and visual interest while emphasizing the connection between inside and out. A delicate fabric scrim is layered over the massing, draped across the stone volumes like cloth over the human body. Glass volumes nested between the primary pinwheeled bars contain gathering spaces, circulation zones, and moments of pause between programmatic areas.

The largest of these volumes—the main lobby—functions as a communal living room that includes an orientation gallery, reception, and visitor amenities. A dramatic, sweeping wood-clad stair, reminiscent of a flowing fabric train, serves as the focal point within the lobby.

The landscape design reinforces the narrative of weaving and flow. Pedestrian promenades connect lakefront parks, water theaters, and plazas into a vibrant public realm. Seasonal plantings, water-retention systems, and ecological drainage features establish the site as a model for sustainable urban design.