By Daniel Elsea
Hong Kong–based Rocco Yim is designing the new Guangdong Museum, part of a large development in Guangzhou called Zhujiang. Planned as Guangzhou’s new city center, Zhujiang will also feature Zaha Hadid’s Guangzhou Opera House.
The new museum’s floor area will feature about 650,000 square feet organized into four large exhibition halls. The building is a large, squat, Modernist box punctured with small alcoves that allow natural light to seep inside. The museum’s simple form is grounded in the Chinese vernacular, drawing inspiration primarily from the lacquer box, which has long served as a vessel for precious Chinese objects.
The building also relies on a traditional Chinese courtyard motif, organized in a series of concentric, layered spaces. Its reliance on traditional Chinese architecture is meant to provide a contrast to Hadid’s more organic and curvilinear design. The existing museum holds a large collection of Chinese artworks and Cantonese artifacts.  |
