Factory under Re-View | AQSO

Factory under Re-View AQSO

I have heard very, very frequently from architects and architecture faculty, that the future of architecture is going to predominantly be that of renovating existing structures. And I always pushed back against such statements. How depressing a vision? We have made all these bad buildings that haven’t stood up to time and now our job is to fix them. I’m not saying that this couldn’t be intellectually stimulating or even fun, but I think it is more every architect’s dream to make a building of their own, not fix someone else’s.

courtesy of AQSO

However, this proposal by AQSO has shown me that there are just some typologies and programs which really just need to exist as a new thing within an old thing. The proposal is for the new Industrial Museum in the Chinese city of Liuzhou. Something like industry is almost always something which is considered by what it has been. Current industry is something which requires time for a context to grow around it, it cannot really be museum-ified while it is tied to events and climates which are current and on-going. Now I know this can really be said of many things and they do fine in brand new museums. But come on, what do you thing of when you hear industry? Is it something high-tech or is it perhaps an old steel mill or a textiles factory? Well enough said, I think old+new is not the only answer here, but I think it was a good one.

courtesy of AQSO

A striking roof topology of aging steel is mated with an old factory of concrete panel. The geometric facets play movement and energy, rising above the stalwart walls of the preexisting factory. This intervention links into mezzanine walkways to provide a journey upwards, the culmination of a visit to the museum. Here visitors can observe and contemplate the undulating industrial landscape that is Liuzhou- a view of the current marked by the past.