Courtesy Preston Scott Cohen
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What If a Museum Tied Itself in Knots?
Taiyuan Museum of Art / Preston Scott Cohen
Site A riverside site in the cultural district of Taiyuan, in northern China.
Program This government-sponsored art museum has gallery, education, café, and administration spaces.
Solution At the core of the museumâs design is a desire to harness and respond to modern technologies for the control of both artificial and natural light. The buildingâs curving, interwoven, and overlapping form creates ample opportunities for exploring the relationship of light and shade, and the architects employ multiple strategiesâskylights, overhangs, and enclosed spacesâto choreograph the interplay. In so doing, they generate a form that flies in the face of the conventions of museum design and promises to redefine the visitor experience. âI think itâs going to engage a larger audience with architecture,â said juror Stan Allen.
Preston Scott Cohenâprincipal of his eponymous 10-person Cambridge, Mass., firmâcreated five wings for the project that are intermingled like the strands of a knot, allowing visitors to either follow a curated path or move seamlessly back and forth between the galleries. The buildingâs dynamic footprint creates vignettes so that a visitor in one gallery can look into another and into a small exterior green space simultaneously, without detracting from the experience of the art. âItâs trying to create new audiences, and new possibilities for new types of space,â said juror Sarah Dunn. âIt has a certain publicness to it that makes it more interesting.â
The knotlike plan drew widespread praise from the judges. âThe museum is clearly a wonderful piece of architecture,â Diane Hoskins said. ââCan it be done?â is the question. But I think itâs a fantastic project.â
Project Credits
Project Taiyuan Museum of Art, Taiyuan, China
Client Taiyuan City Government
Architect Preston Scott Cohen, Cambridge, Mass.âPreston Scott Cohen (architectural design); Amit Nemlich (project architect); Collin Gardner, Ruan Hao, Kanda Song (project assistants); Yair Keshet (1:500 model)
Model Fabricator Iconic Model (1:100 model)
Architect of Record Architecture Design and Research Institute of Southeast University
Size 435,940 square feet
Cost $29.3 million (200 million RMB)
