JINING ART MUSEUM SHOWCASES ORGANIC SHAPES
22 Jul 2021
The Jining Art Museum is located in China’s Shandong province and was designed by Japanese architect Ryue Nishizawa.
The design merges architecture and landscape across three structures comprising of a museum, a café, and a pergola. Images by Paulo dos Sousa for ArchDaily show how the buildings relate to the nearby lake and surrounding greenery.
The organically shaped roof of the museum building creates a series of spaces that expand the museum’s activities out into the environment. The overhang of the roof creates an many outdoor covered areas and a portico-like space around the building. Half of the space covered by the roof is used as semi-outdoor areas that will provide sunshade in the hot summer climate of Jining. 
The exhibition spaces are arranged around several courtyards and are linked by glass corridors that serve not only as articulations but as multi-purpose spaces that house a café, a lounge or a book shop. The extensive use of glass builds a consistent relationship between the exhibition spaces and the surrounding outdoor context, while the locally sourced blue bricks establish a connection with the local Chinese tradition. 
The other two structures on the site reiterate the similar organically shaped flat roofs. The pergola takes shape of a thin fluid canopy and meanders around the existing trees. 
The facility opened in 2019 and is the first museum designed by Pritzker winning architect Ryue Nishizawa in China. 
