Zaishui Art Museum – ADC

A one-kilometre-long art museum in Rizhao, China, by Junya Ishigami forms an inseparable bond with its lake-based site.

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Arch-Exist

Designed by the celebrated Japanese architect Junya Ishigami, Zaishui Art Museum is located on an artificial lake in Rizhao, Shandong Province, China, and comprises exhibition spaces, a visitor centre, and retail areas. Extending one-kilometre across the lake, the 20,000-square-metre building incorporates openings in the façade that allow the water to flow over the museum floor.

“The clear horizontal surface of the lake is drawn inside the building, with the floor, imagined as new land, extending to give a sense of skating on that lake surface, an environment on which humans cannot hope to walk,” explained the architect. “Columns repeated at regular intervals define the surface of the water, while the water’s edge created by that surface defines the new ground. A new exterior is born, in the structure’s interior.”

Glazed units located between the columns can – in places – be opened to provide natural ventilation. The lower sections of the units, located underwater, incorporate voids that channel water from the lake into the museum. A gently undulating roof produces varying levels of daylight and reflectivity, which combined with a varying ground plane (caused by the amount of water occupying a particular floor space), creates a constantly changing interior environment. Ripples from the lake are relayed into the building during the summer months, while in winter the lake freezes over and liquid beneath the ice flows inside through gaps at the bottom of the glass.

Discussing the contextual challenge of building in China, the architect said, “[The] country’s vast, boundless landscapes can pose a daunting challenge. To build with the diminutive beast that is architecture any kind of equal relationship with the immense environment that is China, is very difficult indeed. From the tiniest abode to the most monumental edifice, everything feels in some way defensive. There’s an air of resignation, of a forced severing from the environment, a compulsion to close off.”

“Key to addressing the problem of the landscape in China is to view the architecture as a ‘gentle giant’ of an environment, and search for a totally new relationship between natural and manmade. An entity emerges in which architecture standing in isolation sits comfortably in the natural environment, the two interacting. One discovers a natural environment inside the building, and through its characteristics as a new outside that has sprung up within the building, forges an amiable connection with the surrounding nature. Thus a new relationship between nature and humans is born. Making this happen is the object of this project.”

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