NINGXIA ART MUSEUM

Background of the project

It has been nearly ten years since the start of the Ningxia Art
Museum project in 2013 and the completion of the civil
works. Its completion has filled the long-term lack of Ningxia
Provincial Art Museum and provided high-quality display and
research space. Ningxia Art Museum is located in Jinfeng
District, Yinchuan City. It is the starting point of the east-west
public activity axis of the northern new city. The surrounding
space of the base is very open. On the north side of the base,
across the street is the huge Yinchuan Civic Center. The
design of the Ningxia Art Museum responds to the
surrounding environment and the local regional culture of
Ningxia with its boulder volume.
Architectural concept

The rock paintings carved by ancient ancestors on the rock

walls of Helan Mountain have gradually become an
indispensable part of Ningxia's culture and art after
thousands of years of precipitation, and Helan Mountain has
therefore become a natural carrier and symbol of Ningxia's
culture and art. The meaning of the design is Helan Mountain
Stone, hoping that the building itself can carry the profound
cultural heritage and spiritual power of Ningxia. The rough
and powerful morphological characteristics of the Helan
Mountain Stone are extracted from the architectural image,
and the combination of five mountain stone volumes
presents a tense architectural form. It makes the art museum
itself a public sculpture in the city, and creates a new
spiritual anchor in a huge-scale environment.
 The building generation

building is set on the south side of the site, connecting with

the road on the north side through the outdoor exhibition
hall. The entrance square at the northwest corner of the
building connects the flow of people from the public axis on
the north side, and arrives at the entrance of the art museum
through the guidance of the landscape. The building takes a
complete boulder as the initial shape. By splitting the
boulder to form multiple building volumes, the entrance is
opened to set up an atrium space corresponding to the
northwest flow of people, and the building is reintegrated
into a complete shape through the roof and glass curtain wall
in the gap, presenting Show the freehand scene of the Helan
Mountain stone standing in the vast Gobi.
Indoor

Space The interior and exterior of the building are integrated,

and the volume of the rocks not only presents the external
image, but also extends to the interior space of the building.
In the gaps naturally formed after the combination of
mountain and rock shapes, various canyon spaces are
created, forming a state of interdependence between
mountains and valleys. The space between the volumes of
the exhibition halls is long, narrow and towering, and the
canyons are interspersed through multi-dimensional
platforms of different heights to create a rich spatial effect
and form a circular visiting flow line. At the same time, there
is a rest area at the exit of each exhibition hall. Space for
people to stay.
The canyon is enlarged at the entrance to form a magnificent
atrium space, which meets the requirements for holding
important events such as the opening ceremony. In the
public service and training area, the flowing curves are
contrasted with the tough rock volume, combined with the
half-moon-shaped pure white ceiling, creating a free and
romantic space form. The artist salon integrates the outdoor
courtyard to create a comfortable communication
atmosphere and form a dialogue with the external urban
space and Helan Mountain.
Architectural details

Architectural modeling strives for simplicity, while paying

attention to the design of details. Triangle as the motif of the
building runs through the entire design. The building volume
is cut to form multiple triangular folds to strengthen the
sense of mountain stone volume. In the public service area,
the volume conforms to the shape of the wall and combines
the internal functions to form a gradual triangular window.
The large triangular windows on the south side provide good
lighting conditions for the office and studio space. The
triangular pyramid skylight on the roof presents a sense of
pattern with geometric rhythm, and also undertakes the
function of lighting the atrium. The texture of the hand-
chiseled strip notches on the facade stone, and the contrast
with the flat surface of the large-area glass curtain wall
further strengthen the rough shape of the mountain stone.
Scattered narrow and long polished stones are embedded on
the stone surface of the interior space, which enriches the
texture of the wall and presents a more friendly façade scale.
Plane function

An excellent art museum needs not only a large number of

diverse display spaces, but also complete supporting
functions. Under the undulating and changeable external
architectural form, Ningxia Art Museum provides ten well-
formed exhibition hall spaces, which fully meet the
requirements of various exhibition arrangements. The
exhibition halls are respectively set up on the first to third
floors of the building. Among them, there are three exhibition
halls on the first floor of the building, including a tall
exhibition hall with an area of ​1200 square meters and a clear
height of 8 meters. space to create new forms of works. The
three exhibition halls on the second floor and the four
exhibition halls on the third floor are all set up around the
public platform. Each exhibition hall can be viewed in
combination or used independently, which gives a good
degree of freedom for exhibition arrangement and avoids
interference with other exhibitions when individual exhibition
halls are arranged. . The collection library on the basement
floor has multiple special warehouses for paper books, oil
paintings, miscellaneous items, etc., equipped with advanced
storage and equipment systems, providing professional
guarantee for the storage and maintenance of art works.
At the same time, complete supporting functions are set up
in the museum. The volume in the northwest corner is
vertically combined with a service hall, coffee shop, public
training, art salon and city viewing platform, providing good
support for the later operation of the museum. The self-
contained layout can be used flexibly and independently
when the museum function is closed. At the same time, a
200-person multi-functional hall is set up on the north side
of the first floor to facilitate the holding of academic
exchanges.