One-kilometer-long art museum gently extends over a manmade lake in China, taking the surrounding landscape into the museum. 

Japanese architecture practice Junya Ishigami+Associates has built an art museum that could be "gently gigantic" and exploratory on a Chinese lake where it spans almost the entire lake from one end to the other.

Named Zaishui Art Museum, the 20,000-square-metre museum is located on an artificial lake at the new development zone in Rizhao in Shandong Province.

The single-storey art museum features an exhibition space, visitor center, and shopping center. 

For Junya Ishigami, who envisions a structure that is linear and intertwined with the landscape, the aim is to get rid of the elements that create the feeling of loneliness in Chinese buildings and to establish a direct, positive connection between architecture and the nature.

"Gently gigantic"

"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," said Ishigami. 

"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."

"There is something lonely about Chinese buildings that stand in isolation as if dropped into their limitless surroundings. One gets this impression both in towns, and environments away from built-up areas. All of which makes the obvious need to forge a favorable connection between architecture and surrounding environment, when it comes to China, very tricky indeed."

"How to bring environment and architecture as close as possible to each other?"

During his design process, Ishigami elaborated many questions: "how to treat environment and architecture as equals in the Chinese context?. He continued: "how to bring environment and architecture as close as possible to each other, how to make the boundary between them as ambiguous as possible, how to make nature the gentlest presence possible for us humans?."

The building is designed to be as sculptural as it is because it sits on an artificial lake near the entrance to the area being developed, so that people visiting it will pass through it on their way to the new development.

The museum's interior height reaches at 4.5 meters, and its thin concrete roof fluctuates in places, creating the impression that it is emerging from the lake with the feeling of sinking. 

Parallel pillars rise from the bottom of the lake and are placed to support the thin concrete roof with a delicate wavy shape.

"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," Junya Ishigami explained. 

"Rows of columns stand in the water; floating on top of them, a sash-like roof. A new boundary between water drawn inside here, and the ground. All these elements are contemplated simultaneously," he added.

"A new nature, one able to sit gently alongside us, appears inside the architecture"

"Columns repeated at regular intervals define the new 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," he continued.

Ishigami stated that "thus a new nature, one able to sit gently alongside us, appears inside the architecture."

The architect placed glass panels between the columns, both to provide views towards the lake and to ensure that the water coming from the lake in the submerged lower parts of the panels is naturally directed into the interior.

While water flows into the building through points opened with a special system, a natural environment is created by submerging some parts of the ground.

In winter, the water surface in the lake freezes, the water under the ice will continue to accumulate in liquid form inside the spaces under the glass.

"In this new natural environment created inside a piece of architecture, one senses a landscape in which the scene inside segues into that outside," Ishigami said. 

"Stroll at leisure inside, and one finds some places with exhibits on large areas of ground, and in others, the ground narrowing, surrounded by a large expanse of water. In some places the ceiling is high, allowing in plentiful light and the surrounding scenery; some places are low, ceiling is reflecting on the water, low light slipping, almost crawling across the water's surface, reflecting on the ceiling."

"From the apertures opened up when the weather is mild, ripples from the lake outside are relayed into the building as rhythmically quivering water's surface. In winter the lake outside freezes over." 

"The liquid beneath the ice flows inside through the gaps at the bottom of the glass, pooling there in anticipation of spring," he explained.

The gentle curve of the museum's roof is kept low in places to mimic the lake surface and mountain slopes behind. In other places, it turns towards the sky and opens generously, connecting the interior of the building with the view outside.

"A gentle giant"

According to Ishigami, "a long piece of architecture identical in scale to the vast landscape appears like a streak of wind passing over the lake."

Ishigami believes that "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," he said.

"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," Ishigami emphasized.

The art museum currently hosts a chocolate-themed exhibition with related artworks, however, the building layout can be adapted to various types of exhibitions in the future.

Site plan

150 small sections

Section

Section

Elevations

Junya Ishigami+Associates created a restaurant that features a series of large holes in an earth form in Ube, a city located in Yamaguchi Prefecture in Japan. 

The studio also completed a grand, porous outdoor plaza at the Kanagawa Institute of Technology's campus located in the suburbs of Tokyo, Japan. 

Japanese architect Junya Ishigami established his eponymous studio in 2004 in Tokyo after he previously worked as an architect at SANAA. 

The architect was awarded the 2019 Obel Award for his Art Biotop Water Garden in Japan. He won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2010. 

Project facts

Project name: Zaishui Art Museum

Architects: Junya Ishigami+Associates

Design year: Dec 2016 - July 2019

Completion Year: 2023

Project location: Rizhao, Shandong, China

Clients: Shandong Bailuwan Co.,Ltd

Design Leads: Junya Ishigami, Zenan Li

Design team: Zhirui Lin, Sellua Di Ceglie, Rui Xu, Tong Zhang, Cing Lu, Yuxuan Zhou, Zhixuan Wei, Yunyi Zhang, Hanyang Zhou, Qinxuan Li, Jason Tan, Anping Song, Yichen Ji.

Structure: XinY structural consultants, Xin Yuan

MEP: Environment-friendly solution to Building services Engineering, Xueqin Yin

Lighting adviser: Environment-friendly solution to Building services Engineering, Xueqin Yin

Stone material factory: Sichuan Yutong Stone Co., Ltd

Supervision: Junya.ishigami+ associates / Junya Ishigami, Zenan Li, Zhixuan Wei, Rui Xu, Cing Lu, hanyang Zhou, Qinxuan Li, Yunyi Zhang

Construction (Reinforced concrete part): Beijing Yihuida Architectural Concrete Engineering Co.,Ltd

Site area: 18,417m2

Building area: 15,810m2

Total floor area: 20,220m2

All images © Arch-exist.

All drawings © Junya Ishigami+Associates.

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