Partaking in a 2011 international competition for a new national museum in Beijing, MAD architects’ proposal is a city-sized museum where the public space is the greatest good.
Courtesy Of MAD
Since China began opening up to the world in the late 1970’s, China’s contemporary creative scene has been expanding to the stage of global confidence with added investment in its artists. Built in 1962, the National Art Museum of China, already having one of the largest collections in the country, has been the backdrop to some of the most influential exhibitions in contemporary Chinese history. With the planned move into a new building, the organizing committee followed a global trend: bigger, located in a designated ‘art district’ and more iconic.
Situated on the central axis of the 2008 Olympic site, and part of a six mega volume masterplan, the main question became, how to design something iconic on an unrealistic and inhuman city scale.The proposal by MAD architects for the new museum is a hybrid between an elevated public square and a floating mega building above.
Organized as an open city in three layers, the result is a sequence of outdoor and indoor spaces. In these spaces, nature and function are not separated but intertwined. This creates an architecture that achieves an understanding about one’s bodily presence among the objects that surround him, instead to a functional agglomeration of pre-defined uses.
Courtesy Of MAD
MAD architects’ proposal shows how a building can bring the city and art together, creating a urban public space where people can consider their relationship between time, point of view and each other.
Courtesy Of MAD
Project info:
Architects: MAD.
Location: Beijing, China
Year: 2011
Type: Museum
Site Area: 30,000 sqm
Building Area: 152,200 sqm
Height: 58 m
Director in Charge: Ma Yansong, Qun Dang
Design Team: Zhao Wei, Sohith Perera, Yu Kui, Jei Kim, Geraldine Lo, Mao Beihong
Associate Engineer: ARUP Group Ltd
Ibrahim Abdelhady is an architect, academic, and media entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in architecture and digital publishing. He is the Founder and CEO of Arch2O.com, a leading platform in architectural media, renowned for showcasing innovative projects, student work, and critical discourse in design. Holding dual PhDs in Architecture, Dr. Abdelhady combines academic rigor with industry insight, shaping both future architects and architectural thought. He actively teaches, conducts research, and contributes to the global architecture community through his writing, lectures, and media ventures. His work bridges the gap between practice and academia, pushing the boundaries of how architecture is communicated in the digital age.