With the Longshan mountain range as its company and the Futun stream running through it, the Shunchang Museum weaves together urban construction and natural landscape, and traditional culture and contemporary city dynamism. Part museum, part urban planning exhibition center, part office space, part cultural relics repository, part auditorium, part book bar, part cafe, this majestic monument is the work of the Institute of Architectural Design and Research at Zhejiang University (UAD). Clad in a skin of textured white granite, the massive, sculptural monolith fits like a spindle into this elongated terrain between mountains and streams. With its mirrored glass and stainless steel panels that create a play of reflections between water, mountain and man, the Shunchang Museum is not simply an exhibition space, it is itself an exhibition object. Our favorite? The central oculus which brings luminosity and ventilation in this urban living room where a secular tree is a witness of the memory of the place.

Yaël Nacache