Xie Zilong Photography Museum

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
South Elevation. Image © Li Yao

XIE ZILONG PHOTOGRAPHY MUSEUM

WCY Regional Studio

ARCHITECTS
WCY Regional Studio

CATEGORY
Museum

YEAR
2017

AREA
10621 m²

LOCATION
Changsha Shi, China

INTERIOR DESIGN
Xi Li, Jingbo Li

PHOTOGRAPHS
Li Yao, Jing Qi, Guang Zhang

ELECTROMECHANICAL DESIGN
Shaoping Zheng, Yingjie Mao, Xiaoning Liang (Water supply and drainage), Ning Zhang (HVAC), Jian Liu (electric)

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
Hunan SLF architecture and Landscape Design Co., Ltd.

LIGHTING DESIGN
Wuhan Chenxin Technology Development Co., Ltd. / Huizhou CDN Industrial Development Co., Ltd

Text description provided by architect.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum is built on the banks of the Xiangjiang River and within the Yanghu Wetland Park in Changsha.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Northwest Perspective. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Northeast Perspective. Image © Li Yao

The base is just in the visual corridor of the Wetland Park connecting the Xiangjiang River scenery belt. It is a cultural and artistic highland built by the government.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
The Anxious Journey, Giorgio de Chirico. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Jing Qi

The photography museum, the Xiangjiang new district planning exhibition hall, which we have completed before (2009), and Li Zijian Art Museum (2016) constitutes the cultural living room of the citizens of Yanghu.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Main Entrance. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Light Triangle. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
West Elevation. Image © Li Yao

Based on the idea of complying with the value cognition system of "autonomy" of architecture, through the continuous research and practice of regional typology, this project explores the "archetype" in architectural ontology, and finds out the "psychological schema" behind it.

In addition, with the influence of Giorgio de Chirico's metaphysical painting, we were trying to find out the implicit logic behind the formal language-"type archetype-deep structure-psychological schemata" under the social prospect of pursuing splendor and representation.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Ramp. Image © Li Yao

And will be integrated into the design of "Xie Zilong Photography Museum ".

The metaphysical painting of Chirico is the meditation of eternity, through the“light and shadow”, the picture diffuses mysterious spaciousness and profundity, profound sense of tranquility.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Spatial Infiltration. Image © Guang Zhang
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao

The design of the museum use the familiar objects in daily life to metaphorize and construct a maze of time stagnation, which guiding viewers to pay close attention to alienated strangeness.

Directed at the huge cone tower in the sky, the truncated streets suspended in mid-air, a fork in the road that leads nowhere, the cycle of reciprocation, and the mysterious ramp that staggered to look out......

Some of the elements appear many times in similar but in alienated forms, that all together create a strange feeling of time stagnation, eventually people got lost.

The white warm fair-faced concrete wall makes the spatial structure of the building show the most essential neutral condition.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao

Highlighting the mystery of the material. The spatial depth gradually emerges through light and shadow, intertwined with the memory.

The maze is an ambiguity metaphor that refers to the lost place as well as the fascinating and intoxicated place.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao

The main body of the building is one-off cast of white fair-faced in-situ concrete, no matter the wall, ceiling.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Ramp. Image © Li Yao

Ground or outdoor square, platform, trestle that only use the same material of fair-faced concrete.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
A Place with a Skylight. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
A Place with a Skylight. Image © Li Yao

This construction itself is transcendent. In order to pursue the quality and performance of fair-faced concrete. A large number of samples were made in the early stage of construction.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
The Enigma of the Oracle, Giorgio de Chirico. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Strayed. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
The Path Intersection. Image © Li Yao

Sample wall and white concrete grading test: use high quality white cement instead of traditional Portland cement as the main gelled material, select white or light color sand as aggregator.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
North Elevation. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
A Low Horizontal Long Window. Image © Li Yao

At the same time, the active mineral admixture which has great influence on the whiteness of concrete, such as fly ash and mineral powder, is eliminated.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Entrance Platform. Image © Li Yao
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao

A series of improved tests have made the whiteness of concrete up to even exceed the international standard of 88%.

It is the whitest fair-faced concrete building in China. The image hall materials deliberately pursue white, white as a concept.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
© Li Yao

 It can reduce the interference of the inherent color of the material to the other components in the space and not lose the texture of the fair-concrete itself.

White is still the expression of "empty" to some extent, which not only emphasizes the art in the museum, but also reserves more thinking space and possibility for the choice of art.

Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Urban Fragment. Image © Li Yao


Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Section Plan
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Master Plan


Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Second Floor Plan
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Third Floor Plan
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Fourth Floor Plan
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Ground Floor Plan


Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Borderless Pool Detail
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Skylight Detail


Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Spatial Structure Display
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Generation of the triangle of light


Xie Zilong Photography Museum
The triangle of light, ©Wei Chunyu
Xie Zilong Photography Museum
Generation of the triangle of light