As a new center of art and culture in eastern China, the Wuxi Museum and Art Park builds on the cues of the Chinese garden tradition whose legacy has long been part of the region. Set within Shangxianhe Wetland Park, the museum’s site design and architectural form closely connect and integrate the museum experience with the natural environment. Ennead worked with acclaimed landscape architecture firm West 8 to create an integrated relationship between the surrounding landscape and architecture. The design of the Wuxi Art Museum is conceived as a metaphorical Taihu Scholar Stone – a contemplative and intricate spatial structure that invites one’s spirit in, but also sits quietly as a meditative object amidst the broader natural context.
“Our vision for the Wuxi Art Museum is to set it in a larger overall composition, highlighting views in and out of the museum through subtractive carves and recesses while emulating the natural erosion of spirit stones,” said designer Thomas J. Wong, Partner at Ennead Architects. “The garden metaphor inspires not only a formal proposition but an experiential one, providing an evolving journey of art and nature through a carefully composed choreography that reveals something new with each step.”
“The new art museum will serve as a symbol of Wuxi past, present and future, so it was important to us that its design emerge from the cultural history of the garden city and artfully synthesize art, landscape, and the museum experience into an inextricable whole,” said Brian H. Masuda, Associate Principal at Ennead Architects. “The eroded massing and open ground plane allow the outdoor exhibition gardens and plazas to flow through and around the building, clearly communicating the museum’s aspiration to be a welcoming and accessible civic space in Wuxi that strengthens community through the appreciation of artistic creation.”
Read more about the design of the Wuxi Art Museum here.