Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos has been selected over MAD Architects, Steven Holl, Grimshaw and many others to design the Guangzhou Science Museum.
Planned for the sprawling port city of Guangzhou (Canton), the new science museum will be realized on the south bank of the Pearl River, close to the Guangzhou Tower. It will form part of a new cultural hub, known as "Three Museums - One Square," which will include the future Guangzhou Museum, also won through a private-competition by gmp Architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners.
Read on for a video and more information detailing the winning proposal.
Nieto Sobejano's winning proposal is based on a group of nine volumes conceived as a flexible sequence of large "ceramic vessels." As explained by the Spanish office, the architectural concept arises "from a simple additive process" that "admits multiple variations of a limited number of elements generating a complex space out of a combinatorial system."
The program will have a total area of 80,000-square-meters, including several rooms of permanent and temporary exhibitions, theaters, auditoriums and an indoor garden with views of the city and Lignan Park.
"The new Science Museum will be, together with the adjoining Guangzhou Museum and the Art Gallery, a landmark in the new urban axis, not only for its ambitious programme for the popularization of science, but also for its unusual spatial conception, which proposes a dialogue between the memory and historical tradition of the place and a state of the art technological and museographic approach," says the architects.
