Xiangfan City Museum Hubei | China | Antoine Predock Architect

Fingers of evergreen forest reach down from Xian Shan to tie the Xiangfan City Museum and its site to the mountain. A welcoming entry rises out of the mist and gestures back to the ancient City Center. The building’s limestone base evokes the old city in a modern urban context. Flat polished stainless steel columns line the entry ramp reflecting visitors and the surrounding landscape in a celebration of procession. Adjacent escalators provide easy access to the main entry for the movement impaired.

The Chinese ideogram for landscape - Shan Shui - is literally translated to “mountain” and “water”. This Museum is a landscape, mountain meeting water, symbolic of man’s position between heaven and earth. As visitors pass through the five-story 30,000 gross square meter structure they simultaneously experience the exhibitions though multiple vantage points, unfolding an image in their minds, as in a Wang Hui scroll painting. The two-dimensional representations of a hand scroll are extrapolated into a kinesthetic experience.......more