China’s recent museum-building boom has been heavily chronicled—and critiqued. During the last decade, more than a thousand new buildings have opened in China: 100 per year on average, with a peak of approximately 400 new museums in 2011. A default narrative has taken hold. The rate of construction is outpacing available art. Museums are empty or filled with forgeries; they lack visitors, curators, and the weight of institutional direction needed for successful futures. They may soon be forgotten. Not so fast.
The new book New Museums in China celebrates a golden era of museum building and cultural appreciation in the world’s most populous nation. Seizing the unique economic and creative opportunity, high-profile architecture firms and up-and-coming new designers are experimenting with form in dazzling ways. Exceptional, often cavernous architecture and smaller design gems are ushering in new physical, and with it mental, space for contemplating art. There are museums of glass, birds, wood, clocks, hand-crafted paper, and more traditional holdings. In mega-cities as well as tiny villages, China’s crop of new museums is impossibly young. Is their supposedly doomed future really set in stone—or steel? Author Clare Jacobson offers an alternative story.
CREDITS AND CAPTIONS
1. China Wood Sculpture Museum, Harbin, MAD Architects. CREDIT: Xia Zhi
2. Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, Steven Holl Architects. CREDIT: Shu He
3. Museum of Handcraft Paper, Xianzhuang Village, Trace Architecture Office. CREDIT: Shu He
4. Ningbo History Museum, Ningbo, Amateur Architecture Studio. CREDIT: Lv Hengzhong
5. Xinjin Zhi Museum, Xinjin, Kengo Kuma and Associates. CREDIT: Daici Ano
6. Clare Jacobson (no credit necessary)
近来，中国的博物馆建造热潮广受关注，同时也不乏批评之声。过去十年间，中国逾1000座新建筑向公众开放：平均每年有100座，在2011年达到近乎400家新博物馆的建造高峰。众所周知，建馆的速度已逾越了现有艺术本身的发展水平。博物馆空空如也，或充斥着伪造的痕迹；缺乏观众、策展人和机制引导。它们可能很快就会被遗忘，新的建筑却前赴后继。
新书《中国新博物馆》介绍了在这泱泱大国，博物馆建造和文化增值的黄金时代已然到来。抓住这一独有的经济与创意机遇，知名建筑公司与新锐设计师们以层出不穷的方式进行空间实验。从海绵状的架构到小型的宝石设计会，从全新的物理空间创想到对艺术创作的冥想；从玻璃博物馆、鸟类博物馆、木头博物馆到钟表博物馆、手工造纸博物馆不一而足，从保存传统到求新存变。不管在大都市还是小村庄，中国新兴博物馆的内容都不约而同地稀缺空洞。难道它们的未来只是取决于石头或钢铁吗？该书作者Clare Jacobson将为大家讲述不同的幕后故事。
图注：
1.中国木雕博物馆，哈尔滨，MAD建筑事务所（MAD Architects）
图片提供：Xia Zhi
2.四方当代美术馆，南京，美国斯蒂文•霍尔建筑设计事务所（Steven Holl Architects）
图片提供：Shu He
3.造纸博物馆，云南新庄村，TAO迹•建筑事务所 （Trace Architecture Office）
图片提供：Shu He
4.宁波历史博物馆，宁波，业余建筑工作室（Amateur Architecture Studio）
图片提供：Lv Hengzhong
5.新津志博物馆，成都新津, 隈研吾建筑都市设计事务所（Kengo Kuma and Associates）
图片提供：Daici Ano
6. Clare Jacobson