Wutopia Lab underground museum in China
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ARCHITECTURE
Shanghai-based studio Wutopia Lab has created Deep Time Palace, an underground museum in Changchun featuring a wavy concrete roof with eye-shaped openings.
Located on the southeast corner of the Palace Museum of the Manchurian Regime site, the new museum is the largest fair-faced concrete building in northeastern China, according to the studio.
Named Deep Time Palace, the 16,650-square-meter museum comprises two underground levels with passages that connect to the Manchurian Regime Palace to the west and the Museum of the History of Northeast China Under Japanese Occupation to the north.
"I believe the art museum should adopt a more modest approach," said Ting Yu, chief architect of Wutopia Lab. "With this in mind, I have concealed the art museum, avoiding any alteration to the established ambiance above."
Two eye-shaped openings on the roof introduce natural lighting into the underground space
The choice to use fair-faced concrete and a large-span structure, commonly found in industrial buildings, pays homage to the city's industrial past and creates a vast open exhibition space.
"When envisioning the space, I aimed to utilize the underground structure as a starting point to convey the sense of 'depth'," Yu said.
"I also wanted to challenge our conventional mindset of a linear timeline by introducing an immense scale that would disorient viewers."
A steel mesh shell with curved glass creates an arched dome as the main entrance of the building
The studio used steel to form the structure of the thin-shell concrete roof covering the museum, which spans over 10,000 square meters.
This is covered in green plants and can be used for social activities as well as parking.
Two eye-shaped skylights were added to the roof, allowing natural light into the underground space.
