Zhang Yan Cultural Museum / Horizontal

Design
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Zhang Yan Cultural Museum / Horizontal Design

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© Schran Images
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 Curated by 韩爽 - HAN Shuang
 6 days ago
MUSEUM, RENOVATION
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SHANGHAI, CHINA
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Architects: Horizontal Design
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 Area: 1064.0 m²
 Year: 2019
 Photographs: Schran Images
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Manufacturers: Louis Poulsen, 上海安美特铝业有限公司, 湖南桃花江竹材科技股份
有限公司
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Products used in this Project:

 HANGING LAMPS
Louis Poulsen
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Lamp - PH 5 + PH 5 Mini
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MORE SPECS

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The south side of the site. Image © Schran Images

Text description provided by the architects.  Zhang Yan Village is located in Chonggu Town, in
the western suburbs of Shanghai. In recent decades, the demographics of the village have changed
dramatically, with a rapidly declining young population, which has had as a result the
deterioration of the original village. The town includes houses from the Qing Dynasty, of the
Republic of China, and two- or three-story houses built after the founding of the People’s
Republic of China. As part of a new sub-urban development policy, Zhang Yan Village, like many
other villages and towns in China, has embraced renovation and revival.

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Part of the exhibition 1. Image © Schran Images

“Preservation, Growth, and Expansion” is our strategy for the renovation and rehabilitation of
Zhang Yan Village and other similar villages in China. It does not aim to dominate and
reconstruct, nor to repair the old as old. Rather, it strives to follow the development and context of
history, to put contemporary needs and consciousness into the village, to reorganize the layout,
program the commercial ecology, and to create a dialogue between the new and the old.

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Western entrance square (night). Image © Schran Images

Preservation: Old buildings embody the history and culture of the ancient village. They must
remain and be improved by means of reinforcement and preservation.

Growth: For the dilapidated buildings whose interior space is no longer available, “cleaning up”
the broken parts effectively retain the functional ones. Growing naturally out of its context, the
“new” can therefore coexist with the “old.”

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Part of the ancient wall. Image © Schran Images

Reproduction: The new buildings represent a new era and, specifically, new functions. The
museum features several contemporary buildings, constructed on the vacant parts of the site.
The site of Cultural museum is representative of the genealogy of the village’s buildings. It
encompasses the Village History Hall (antique of Qing Dynasty), the Zhang Family’s House (a
dilapidated late Qing Dynasty house), and an open space. The neighboring buildings are two- or
three-story constructions from the 1980s, as well as a religious landmark, a temple to worship the
local deity.

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Grass yard. Image © Schran Images

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The interior view from the north to the south of exhibition 1.

Image © Schran Images
Due to the serious deterioration of the Zhang Family’s house, only the exterior wall was able to be
preserved, inside which the “Contemporary” exhibition hall is built. While adopting the traditional
typology of an atrium accompanied by inward sloping roofs, the new exhibition hall also
maintains an offset of 30cm to show respect toward the old construction.In comparison, the
Village History Hall was better preserved. Its internal wooden load-bearing structure was repaired,
partition walls were removed, and the original atrium was preserved. The Hall houses a second
exhibition space with a theme of “Tradition.” We renovated the floor with anodized aluminum
plates to resist humidity, keeping material and therefore spatial consistency with the previous
exhibition hall. It also to lights up and expands the space atmospherically. The walls, the ceiling
and the atrium are all preserved.During our research into the Village History Hall, we found that
there had historically been another building to its north. Therefore, the third, “Future” exhibition
hall is built from the renewal of the original site. Anodized aluminum is used again, this time on
both the floor and the ceiling, whose uniformity brings a sense of future, a dynamic counterpart
for the previous two exhibitions.

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View from the water yard corridor to reading room and tearoom.
Image © Schran Images

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 View from the reading room to the water yard. Image © Schran
Images
The area outside of the third exhibition hall is kept as open space. With the old tree and bamboos
on the site preserved, a water patio and leisure zone offer a resting and social space for villagers.

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