Hasta La Ideas

Chinese architects MAD have sent us new images of a museum they completed earlier this year in the city of Ordos, in the Gobi desert.

Shaped like a large undulating blob, the Ordos Museum is clad in polished metal tiles that are resistant to frequently occurring sandstorms.

Galleries inside the museum are housed in smaller blobs, connected by bridges.

Entrances on both sides of the building allow local residents to use the atrium as a through-route.

You can watch a movie about the building here.

This isn’t the first high-profile project in Ordos, the newly constructed city for a million people – artist Ai Weiwei masterplanned 100 private villas by different architects there back in 2008 – see all our stories about the project here.

Photography is by Iwan Baan. More images of this project can be found on his website.

Here’s some more information from MAD:

MAD’s Ordos Museum Completes

Construction of the MAD designed Ordos Museum has recently been completed in fall 2011. Familiar yet distinct, the museum appears to have either landed in the desert from another world or to always have existed. From atop a dune- like urban plaza, the building is enriched with a convergence of naturalistic interiors, bathed in light. The result is a timeless architecture in a modern city of ruins.

Six years ago, the Inner Mongolia Ordos was an extended landscape of the majestic Gobi desert. Today, it is a urban centre mired in a common controversy in modern Chinese civilization: the conflict between the people’s long standing traditions and their dreams of the future. Architects are asked to develop the urban landscape and yet need to be mindful of the delicate sustenance of minority cultures and its future potentials. In 2005, the local bureaucrats established a new master plan for its city development. Upon the initialization of this master plan, MAD was commissioned by the Ordos city government to conceive a museum to be a centerpiece to the new great city.

Influenced by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes, MAD envisioned a mysterious abstract form capable of fostering an alternate, timeless development of Chinese tradition and future. Whilst the surface of this shape functions as a metal container critical to protect the interior from the harsh winters and frequent sand storms of the region, metaphorically this external layer operates as a shield protecting the precious culture and history of the city from the unknown growth of the city. The museum appears to float over a waving sand hill, a gesture saluting the landscapes which have now been supplanted by the streets and buildings of the new cityscape. This plaza is now a favorite amongst the locals who gather their families and friends to explore, play or lounge in the pleasant landscape.

Entering the museum presents visitors with a strong contrast to the exterior: an airy monumental cave flushed with natural light through skylights. The cave links to a canyon which carves out a void between the galleries and exhibition hall and is brightly illuminated at the top. Patrons maneuver along the base of these primitive surroundings and through the light across mid-air tectonic bridges, reminiscent of the intersection of the past and the future of the Gobi landscape. Visitors will repeatedly cross these sky bridges and reflect upon their journey from a variety of picturesque vantages.

The local community, as well, is encouraged to pass through the base of the central canyon which connects the two public entries at opposite ends without entering the exhibition hall or galleries. The varying internalized flows of circulation are guided by a succession of light and shadow, at times mysteriously shaded and occasionally brilliantly bright yet consistently engaging.

For the museum employees, a south facing, naturally lit interior garden is shared by the office and research programmes of the museum, creating a natural work environment.

The completion of the museum has provided the local citizens a place to embrace and reflect upon the fast paced development of their city. People meet organically in the naturalistic landscapes of the museum, an intersection of natural and human development.


Location: Ordos, China Typology: Museum
Site Area: 27,760 sqm Building Area: 41, 227 sqm Building Height: 40 m

Directors: Ma Yansong, Yosuke Hayano, Dang Qun
Design Team: Shang Li, Andrew C. Bryant, Howard Jiho Kim, Matthias Helmreich, Linda Stannieder, Zheng Tao, Qin Lichao, , Sun Jieming, Yin Zhao, Du Zhijian, Yuan Zhongwei, Yuan Ta, Xie Xinyu, Liu Weiwei, Felipe Escudero, Sophia Tang, Diego Perez, Art Terry, Jtravis B Russett, Dustin Harris

Associate Engineers: China Institute of Building Standard Design & Research Mechanical Engineer: The Institute of Shanxi Architectural Design and Research
Façade/cladding Consultants: SuP Ingenieure GmbH, Melendez & Dickinson Architects Construction Contractor: Huhehaote construction Co., Ltd
Façade Contractor: Zhuhai King Glass Engineering CO.LTD