Design Anthology - Asia Pacific Edition
Art Museum, Guangdong
A look inside the new Tadao Ando-designed He Art Museum, a development set to enrich the region's arts and culture scene
This autumn marked the opening of He Art Museum in Guangdong's Shunde district, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando to house business tycoon He Jianfeng's extensive art collection, which began with a focus on artists from the Lingnan region, especially those who pioneered the Lingnan School style of painting. He then expanded his collection to include the work of modern Chinese artists like Qi Baishi and Chinese-French artist Zao Wou-Ki as well as international artists like Pablo Picasso, Damien Hirst and Kohei Nawa, though the museum is very much intended as a celebration of Lingnanese art and culture.
The inaugural exhibition, set to run until March 2021, is independently curated by Feng Boyi and titled From the Mundane World. It asks viewers to examine sociology in the context of global development, modernisation and our impact on the natural world, and features works by contemporary artists including 2019 Venice Biennale participant Yin Xiuzhen and British-Palestinian artist Mona Hatoum. Another section is dedicated to Shunde's food culture, and explores the relationship between nature and our food system.
According to museum director Shao Shu, the opening of HEM addresses an imbalance in southern China's Greater Bay Area when it comes to the arts and culture sector. ‘According to the 2018 Four Bay Area Impact Reports, art development in the Greater Bay Area is extremely uneven. Guangzhou's support for culture has been lacking for several years, so there's economic growth but cultural decline,' Shao explains. ‘Shunde is an affluent district with a strong economy but needs better access to arts and culture.'
Before designing the 16,000-squaremetre concrete structure, Ando spent time researching China's history and Lingnan's architecture. The resulting design reflects the region's architectural heritage, which he says was influenced by the styles of Jiangnan, a delta region south of the Yangtze River. Ando notes that Lingnan has a similar terrain to Jingnan, and adopted some of its architectural characteristics such as central sky wells, waterside pavilions and meditation gardens.
Ando incorporated aluminium louvres on the exterior to mitigate the region's subtropical climate and designed the world's first doublehelix slick concrete staircase, its hollow central atrium dramatically lit by a circular skylight that echoes the sky well. The architect says he approached the design by challenging the notion of ‘dynamic geometry' and using circular forms to give a sense of tension, rhythm and balance, with the four storeys realised as a series of overlapping circles.
A garden and pond wrap around the main structure in a nod to the riverside pavilions of Jiangnan's waterside cities like Hangzhou. ‘Museums are like an oasis in urban life,' Ando says. ‘This is a space that provides spiritual experiences and tells inspiring cultural stories to people who are taking a break from daily life. They should be able to spend time communicating with art and immerse themselves within the space.'
While private museums continue to open across China, this particular institution is determined to set itself apart by cultivating its regional art community. ‘Beijing is the national cultural centre, and the art business in Shanghai is prosperous,' notes Shao before adding that the cultural backgrounds and audience preferences are very different between Beijing, Shanghai and the Greater Bay Area. ‘I hope HEM receives distinct recognition in the global art community,' he says.
Facing page
Tadao Ando’s signature concrete figures throughout the new He Art Museum in Guangdong, perhaps most impressively in the world-first double-helix slick concrete staircase that forms a dramatic central atrium (top). The museum was designed to house the He family’s collection, part of which is Liu Wei’s Nature (2020), made from galvanised iron, aluminium alloy and fibreglass (bottom)