LIANGZHU

CULTURAL
MUSEUM
DAVID CHIPPERFIELD ARCHITECTS
BEGUN 2003
COMPLETED 2007
HANGZHOU, CHINA
GROUND FLOOR PLAN

LONGITUDINAL SECTION
ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION
ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION

In a 2012 interview during his time curating the Venice Architecture Biennale, David Chipperfield
stated that architects are “in danger as a profession of speaking to ourselves… as if we’re a bunch
of actors let loose on a stage, all speaking our parts at the same time.” This belief drove Chipperfield
to create architecture that was in constant dialogue with the site’s history, the community’s culture,
and the spirit of the times.

Defined by the powerful voids that punch through its seemingly solid exterior, the Liangzhu Culture
Museum is itself a representation of the archaeological sites where its artifacts were found. Just as
these sites are dug up and exposed, so too the massive voids expose and highlight the insides of
the museum. This focus on voids as central organizing and processional elements is also key to
Chipperfield’s other work, such as the Neues Museum in Germany.

Encasing these voids is a solid stone shell, an element that was becoming more common in “ex-
perimental” Chinese architecture at the turn of the century. Exemplified in Liu Jiakun’s design of the Figure 14: Architectur-
Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Museum, such strong and monolithic facades were the results of efforts al, historical, and cultural
to find a new way to adapt traditional Chinese architecture to a modern vernacular. Chipperfield’s precedents for Chipperfield’s
focus on adapting traditional typologies also exemplifies the impact of Liang Sicheng’s work to cel- Liangzhu Culture Museum.
ebrate and preserve the unique and distinct elements of Chinese architecture. Sicheng’s Nanjing
Museum is a forebearer of the Liangzhu Culture Museum in combining Eastern and Western archi- Center: Exploded axono-
tectural language. metric view of the museum’s
voids, shell, interior rooms,
and site.
Another key piece of Chinese architectural heritage adapted for the Liangzhu Museum was the Si-
heyuan typology. These courtyard houses are some of the most iconic pieces of Chinese architec- Images, clockwise from top
tural history, and Chipperfield utilizes a very similar triple-courtyard scheme with surrounding galleries right: Liu Jiakun’s Luyeyuan
to create intimate and powerful communal spaces. Stone Sculpture Museum, a
Siheyuan house, the Yangtze
Finally, the massing and site reference the ancient Liangzhu city itself. Splitting the building into four River delta, remains of an
bars, Chipperfield mimicked the structure of the Liangzhu city rectangular grid, while also surrounding ancient Liangzhu settlement,
the building with an artificial lake that references the prominence of the Yangtze River Delta in the Liang Sicheng’s Nanjing
Liangzhu people’s daily lives. museum, sketch of Chipper-
field’s Neue Museum, Liang-
zhu archaeological site.
 In the book Theoretical Practice published in 1994, David Chipperfield states that contemporary
architecture finds itself in an ideological void, and that “architecture must define its purpose, the lim-
its of its effect and the power of its materiality.” This further cements the idea that architecture itself
contains the ability for the built form to transcend physicality and that its sole purpose is to fulfill the
narrative created for itself.

The relation to the exterior and its internal spaces is the interplay and contradiction between spac-
es both solid and void, mimicking the playfulness of hidden and found, buried and unearthed spac-
es. Thereby creating the narrative of excavating and rediscovering history and bringing embedded
culture out to light. This is then evoked in the courtyard spaces scattered throughout the museum
that brings in light to several areas of the building, with light wells that extrude up allowing light to
bounce off the surface and create bounce light fills. Reminiscent of traditional Chinese Housing ty-
pologies, these spaces provide a much needed break in the spatial continuity of interior spaces by
interspersing the external spaces throughout the museum experience.

The contrast between solid and voids are also well explored within the materiality evoking a sense
of a cave-like earthy ambience with the untreated and non planar stone finishes within the interior of
the exhibition spaces to create a sense of hidden relics located deep within the context. The overall
layout is also evocative of ancient Liangzhu city grid layouts, further exemplifying the deep historical
resemblance from the modern abstraction of it in the architectural form. A continued

The materiality, architectural layout, abstracted form, interplay of interiors and exteriors and the
roots of historical context creates the narrative that so eloquently speaks for itself that it becomes
not just a building to house the Liangzhu cultural artefacts but becomes a timeless monument that
represents it as well.

Figure 15: Liangzhu Cul-

tural Museum Axonometric
REFERENCES

TEXTS
Chipperfield, D. (1994). Theoretical practice. Artemis.

Glancy, J., & Chipperfield, D. (2013, January). “There is room for radical ideas.” L’Architecture
d’Aujourd’hui, (393), 20–47.

Lim, S.-H., Song, H.-G., & Park, C.-B. (2013). Meaning of the Verticality and the Horizontality in
David Chipperfield’s Architecture. Journal of the Architectural Institute of Korea Planning & Design,
29(2), 139–146. https://doi.org/10.5659/JAIK_PD.2013.29.2.139

IMAGES
Arquitectura Viva. (2020, May 4). Luyeyuan Sculpture Museum, Xinmin - Liu Jiakun . https://
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Beyond Summits. (2019, March 8). Nanjing Museum. Nanjing Travel. https://www.gonanjingchina.
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CCCL Admin. (n.d.). Explore the 5000-year-old archaeological ruins of Liangzhu City in China.

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chaeological-ruins-of-liangzhu-city-in-china

Chipperfield, D. (n.d.). Neues Museum. David Chipperfield Architects. https://davidchipperfield.

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Fernandes, S. (2021, November 23). An overview of Siheyuan. RTF | Rethinking The Future.
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