New Chinese museums: iconic boxes in search of contents

Maria Paola Repellino

2019

Repellino, Maria Paola. 2019. “I nuovi musei cinesi: scatole iconiche in cerca di contenuti” Il Giornale dell’Architettura, December 23, 2019.

ISSN 2284-1369

“‘Ghost museums’, ‘vanity projects’, ‘museification of China’ are just some of the terms used to describe the boom of new museums and cultural centres built on Chinese territory in the last 40 years. Famous international architects such as David Chipperfield, Kohn Pedersen Fox, OMA and Chinese architectural firms such as Open Architecture, Vector Architects, Tao Office are enlisted to shape this wave of new projects. Leaving aside the cultural impact, these interventions are field of extraordinary formal, tectonic and typological potential for contemporary architects. The challenge is to respond to a global cultural demand, trying to define interventions that increasingly reflect local conditions, traditions and ambitions”