MAD Architects, led by Ma Yansong, announced the design plan of "Sanxingdui Ancient Shu Cultural Site Museum and Auxiliary Facilities Project".
MAD placed a cluster of fusiform timber-framed buildings scattered in clusters on top of the dense green water of the Sanxingdui Museum Park. The new building complex and the original landscape constitute a new land landscape, on the one hand, it reveals the mystery of the ancient future similar to the Sanxingdui cultural relics, on the other hand, it is connected with the affinity of nature with the volume and posture of moderation, making the park a city and cultural public space where humanities and nature meet, history and the future.
Located in the west of Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, the Sanxingdui site, whose cultural accumulation is about 4500-2800 years old, is one of the ancient cities, ancient kingdoms and ancient Shu cultural sites in southwest China with the largest distribution range, the highest specifications, the longest duration and the richest cultural connotation. The Sanxingdui site has now been jointly declared a World Cultural Heritage Site with the Jinsha Site.
The unknown is the mystery. The reason why Sanxingdui has attracted global attention is more due to the fact that the outside world knows very little about the ancient Shu culture represented by the ancient city and ancient country in which it was located at that time. One of the more widely agreed understandings is that because the Shu state is located in the interactive zone of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River basin in China, the cultural relics unearthed by Sanxingdui echo the mysterious ancient Shu native culture on the one hand, and on the other hand, reflect the Central Plains culture that appeared due to the migration of the Central Plains population into the Shu land. At present, the cultural relics excavated from the site displayed by the Sanxingdui Museum mainly include bronze, jade, gold, stone, pottery, ivory, sea shell and so on.
Bronze figures taken inside the No. 3 "Sacrifice Pit" at the site of the 2021 Sanxingdui site archaeological excavations (taken on March 16). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Shen Bohan
Bronze and ivory photographed inside the No. 3 "Sacrifice Pit" at the 2021 Sanxingdui site archaeological excavation site (photo taken on March 16). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Shen Bohan
Bronze artifacts photographed inside the No. 3 "Sacrifice Pit" at the site of the 2021 Sanxingdui site archaeological excavation (taken on March 16). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Shen Bohan
The planned Sanxingdui Museum Park is located in the northeast corner of the core protection area of the site, covering a total area of 90,000 square meters. The design includes the general planning of the park, the construction of a new museum and visitor reception service center, and the overall landscape planning and design of the park. After completion, the museum will become a world-class thematic museum for collecting, displaying, protecting and studying the cultural relics excavated from the Sanxingdui site.
The eye of the earth
The eye of ancient civilization
The eye of nature
Mad designed the new complex as a group of six timber-framed buildings scattered east-west. East of Xiangxin Road is the first building in the complex, the Tourist Reception Service Center, with a construction area of 5,830 square meters. Extending further westward, five buildings of varying sizes make up the new museum. The new building covers an area of about 35,000 square meters and a construction area of 28,650 square meters.
A number of cultural relics excavated from the Sanxingdui site, such as bronze longitudinal masks and bronze statues, are exaggerated and grotesque in shape. After the sun sets, the six buildings seem to transform into a pair of torch-like eyes behind the sanxingdui bronze mask and the golden mask, and the gods and forms are one, so that the people in it seem to swim between history and the future.
During the day, the building's wooden curtain wall echoes the natural temperament of the park's dense forest. The large-span wooden structure provides an open and column-free space for the building, giving the exhibition maximum layout flexibility. The top glass skylight provides natural lighting conditions for the gallery corridor.
Visitors enter from the main entrance of the Visitor Reception Service Center, and after passing through the viewing hall that introduces the culture of Sanxingdui, they will enter the entrance hall on the first floor of the new museum building through the underground corridor, thus starting the Sanxingdui cultural tour.
The exhibition halls are connected to each other by south-facing glass galleries, and people move in the corridors, and the scenery outside the window is changed with the changes of the landscape.
Humanity and nature meet
MAD defines the park as a place where humanity and nature meet, so it does not build the new museum into a large structure, and respects and preserves the original trees and water features on the site to the greatest extent, and optimizes it into a landscape that is in harmony with the new building, creating an atmosphere of unity between the museum and the garden.
The north-facing exhibition hall and other functional blocks of the complex form an undulating landscape, covered under a green roof. Visitors can walk slowly from the north side of the Duck River to the second-floor roof green space to enjoy the 360-degree park scenery and beautiful river views.
After walking out of the new museum after the exhibition, people can continue to visit the Digital Experience Hall (now the Bronze Hall), the Cultural Relics Protection and Restoration Exhibition Center, the Research and Learning Hall (now the Comprehensive Hall), etc. along the remaining tree-lined walkways, and experience the Sanxingdui culture from different angles.
The new Sanxingdui Museum should go beyond the structure of expanding cultural relics, and should create and render an atmosphere that allows people to release and fly with their thoughts and spirits. The encounter and communion of cultural relics, place atmosphere and nature here will drive people to feel the engraved influence of Sanxingdui civilization on contemporary civilization and human spirit.
Sanxingdui Ancient Shu Cultural Site Museum and ancillary facilities
Guanghan, Sichuan, China
2020 – 2021
Type: Museum
Land area: 90,000 square meters
Building area: 34,480 square meters, of which 28,650 square meters are museums and 5,830 square meters are visitor reception centers
Presiding Architects: Ma Yansong, Dang Qun, Yosuke Hayano
Competition Design Team: Tiffany Dahlen, Liu Zifan, Pittayapa Suriyapee, Ma Yiran, Cievanard Nattabowonphal, Roman, Chen Hao, Chen Shijie, Wang Shuang, Xiao Yuhan