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| Tue 06 Jan 2009 |
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Suzhou Museum |
Tuesday, 16 October 2007 |
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 Chinese architect I.M. Pei with Pei Partnership Architects recently designed the Suzhou Museum in the city’s historic district 160 kilometres northwest of Shanghai. The building adjoins the 19th century Zhong Wang Fu complex and the UNESCO-listed 16th century Garden of the Administrator. Architecture and landscape become interrelated as a series of gardens and courts flow in and from the building itself. While a high wall visually separates the museum’s main garden from the adjacent ancient garden, a stream of water connected by a footbridge joins the two properties together. The gardens, however, are not modeled after their ancient counterpart. Pei yearns to establish a contemporary form of Chinese landscape design.  The interior space unfolds into a series of spaces made up of varying heights and geometric shapes. The collection consists of a mix of ancient and modern art – relics from Ming and Qing dynasties as well as contemporary exhibitions. Pei deliberately built a modern structure while capturing the subtle yet expressive Chinese spirit. The building’s exterior, with its white walls and gray tiled roof not only respects the traditional colour-scheme used throughout the city of Suzhou, but also provides a backdrop further emphasising the importance of the gardens. In his museum, Pei hopes to foster and inspire a new generation of thinking about Chinese-specific modern architecture and design. By Andrew J Wiener. (Pics: Kerun Ip) |
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