Designed by MAD Architects for the 2011 international competition for a new national museum in Beijing, their proposal aims at being a city-sized museum where the public space is the greatest good. Situated on the central axis of the 2008 Olympic site, and part of a six mega volume masterplan, the main question became how to design something iconic on an unrealistic and inhuman city scale. Their response became a hybrid between an elevated public square and a floating mega building above. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Since China began opening up to the world in the late 1970’s, China’s contemporary creative scene has been expanding to the stage of global confidence with added investment in its artists. Built in 1962, the National Art Museum of China, already having one of the largest collections in the country, has been the backdrop to some of the most influential exhibitions in contemporary Chinese history. With the planned move into a new building, the organizing committee followed a global trend: bigger, located in a designated ‘art district’ and more iconic.
