Unusual Architecture + Taiyuan

Taiyuan, Sciansi, Cina: [TAIYUAN MUSEUM BY PRESTON SCOTT COHEN]
Preston Scott Cohen

The Taiyuan Museum of Art works as a cluster of buildings unified by continuous and discontinuous promenades both inside and outside.

Preston Scott Cohen

The building responds to the urban parkscape in which it is set; visitors are encouraged to pass through the building while not entering into the museum itself. An exterior ramp threading through the building connects the heterogeneous hardscapes, lawns and sculpture gardens.

Preston Scott Cohen

The integration of building and landscape registers multiple scales of territory ranging from the enormity of the adjacent Fen River to the intimacy of the museum’s own particular spatial episodes.

Preston Scott Cohen

Inside, the security of museum space is maintained by a highly controlled interface between gallery and non-gallery programs including an auditorium, bookstore, restaurant, library, education center, and administrative wing.

Preston Scott Cohen

The individual sets of elevators and cores are distributed to guarantee easy access and easy divisibility between zones regulated by different schedules and rules of access. At the garage level, the services are intricately planned in order not to interfere with parking lots for staff and public.

Preston Scott Cohen

The museum galleries are organized to ensure maximum curatorial flexibility. The galleries can be organized into a single, spiraling sequence for large chronological exhibitions or into autonomous clusters operating independently.

Preston Scott Cohen

For visitors architectural cues offer – the placement of ramps and portals, the expansion and contraction of space – provide a means of wayfinding.

Preston Scott Cohen

The building gives visitors the freedom either to follow a predetermined chronological sequence or to skip from one set of galleries to another, in a nonlinear fashion.

Preston Scott Cohen

Exterior light weight honeycomb panels with stone veneer produce an evocative and elusive material effect and the perception of an exceptional scale.

Preston Scott Cohen

The panels are reflective as if metallic, seemingly too large to be stone panels, but clearly possessing the properties of both materials. Advanced parametric software allowed panels to conform to standard widths, reducing material waste.

Preston Scott Cohen
Preston Scott Cohen
Preston Scott Cohen
Preston Scott Cohen
Preston Scott Cohen
Preston Scott Cohen

Location: Taiyuan, China Architect: Preston Scott Cohen Project Team: Preston Scott Cohen (architectural design), Amit Nemlich (project architect), Collin Gardner, Hao Ruan, Joshua Dannenberg (project assistants), Yair Keshet (model) Project Consultants: Architecture Design and Research Institute of South East University Area: 32,500 m2 Construction Budget: 6,500 RMB/m2 Project Year: 2007-2010 Client: Taiyuan City Government