Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has completed work on its science fiction museum in Chengdu, China, and it’s every bit as impressive as the promised renderings.
The building has an amorphous shape, like an expanding nebula with a star in the middle, and houses a futuristic interior that wouldn’t be out of place in a science fiction film. As the name suggests, the museum is located in Chengdu, a city of 20 million people and the capital of China’s Sichuan Province (southwest). Surrounded by mountain ranges and forests, the city has a long history dating back thousands of years, including the Bronze Age Sanxingdui Civilization, which produced amazingly detailed and otherworldly masks.
The interior of the building measures 59,000 m² and is divided into several exhibition rooms, conference rooms, event areas, galleries and theaters. A spacious central atrium is naturally lit by a large skylight and carefully placed glazing reveals views of the landscape in key locations, including a large window overlooking a nearby mountain.
According to ZHA sources, the new Chengdu Science and Fiction Museum is located in the center of Jingrong Lake in the new science and innovation city of Pidu District in Chengdu. The museum’s design, integrated into the natural landscape of the lakeshore, defines activity hubs connected by pedestrian paths that extend from the city to the heart of the building and through the surrounding parks, creating a journey of discovery between indoor and outdoor spaces different levels connecting exhibition galleries, educational institutions, cafes and other museum services.
The museum’s interior is naturally ventilated and a large installation of solar panels on the roof helps reduce energy consumption from the grid. The landscaping is also significant and was designed to utilize the adjacent lake to collect and store rainwater, filter it naturally and reuse it within the building, presumably for irrigation and toilets, but the ZHA does not provide this at.
The museum officially opened in recent days and has hosted both WorldCon, the world’s largest science fiction event, and the Hugo Award, presented for the first time in China.
The Chengdu Science Fiction Museum is the latest in a growing line of high-quality ZHA-designed buildings completed in China in what appears to be a concerted effort to focus on the country, along with other notable works such as the gigantic Beijing Daxing International Airport and Infinitus Plaza.
Photos: ZHA