Ginkgo GalleryClose

Ginkgo Gallery is located on an island in a manmade lake in Jiaxing, China. This private museum mixes two traditional museum typologies – the guided museum and the free plan museum – into a scheme with fluid spaces, allowing the visitor to discover and explore.

Museum boom
China is undergoing a ‘museum boom’ in which not only a large number of iconic museums is under construction, but also the scale of the typical museum is increasing massively. Ginkgo Gallery is an antidote to this phenomena: a humble, intricate museum where art and nature merge into one immersive experience.

The museum is part of a network of private museums in the Yangzte River Delta, which aim to make art part of public life, and particularly educate children in the field of contemporary art. To this end, the museum also houses an auditorium and workshop space.

Fluid spaces connecting Art and Nature
Inspired by its rural context, we conceived the museum as a village which allows for exploring. The DNA of the typical local village – with its small scale and sophisticated network of spaces that differ in size – is the true concept for this museum.

This ‘museum as village’ mixes two traditional museum typologies: the conventional ‘guided’ routing and the ‘free flow’ plan merge into a building with fluid spaces, where visitors can explore and choose their own route – Schinkel meets Mies!

Increasing scale
Because the building is rather closed on its southern façade, we opened it up towards the north. The exhibition halls increase in both size and height from the south towards the north. They are divided by ‘streets’ that run east-west and bring in natural light. The structure of the museum is built up from solid walls, carrying curved concrete slabs which span up to 17 meters.

Interaction with landscape
The interaction with the landscape is critical in the design and experience of this museum: being situated on an island, getting to the museum is an experience in itself. Once across, this experience continues as the exhibition starts in a statue garden.

Also, two courtyard gardens are at the heart of the museum building. On the north side, the building opens up towards the landscape and the lake, allowing the visitor to constantly balance between art and nature.

Ginkgo Gallery
Design MORE Architecture
Client Huazhang Real Estate Development Ltd
Area 1,500 sqm
Design 2018
Status Under Construction

Team
Daan Roggeveen, Robert Chen with
Lina Peng, Pedro Martins, Emilio Wang, Mengyao Han, Anna Clement, Jeff Kuo

Structure / MEP / HVAC 久 利恩机构 9LEON
Façade美特幕墙 Shanghai Meite curtain wall Co Ltd

Special thanks to: Miguel Gentil & Javier Caro / BAUM Arquitectura

Ginkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo GalleryGinkgo Gallery
© MORE Architecture
Theme by Vorkshop