Architecture studio OMA has mirrored the programme of the SANAA-designed New Museum in Manhattan with an extension that has a unique profile and facade treatment.

Led by OMA‘s New York office, the New Museum expansion features a ground-up build abutting the structure Japanese architecture studio SANAA designed for the institution in 2007.

OMA’s project, its first public building in the city, doubles the footprint of the contemporary art museum to 120,000 square feet (11,000 square metres), adding much-needed social and gallery space and additional egress for the expanding number of visitors.

OMA New York principal Shohei Shigematsu said the conditions for the expansion were unusual, given the relative contemporaneity of the SANAA building and referenced the idea of a “twin or pair” in his studio’s design.

“We were very careful in actually understanding what it means to build contemporary against contemporary,” Shigematsu told Dezeen.

“We actually looked at the idea of the pairs, or that notion of the pair.”

New Museum extension — A massive staircase fills the atrium at the front of the building. Photo by Jason Keen

He recalled a set of reference images, such as that of a performance of Marina Abramovic and her then-husband Ulay standing naked facing each other in a doorway for in 1977 and of the fixed-service structures that support an orbital rocket pre-launch.

“I often joked, when I had to present this to the board members, that finding the love of your life is one of the most difficult things, right?” he said. “So this is what we were doing here.”

“It’s highly connected, but highly individual too,” he continued.

OMA museum project in New York City — The metal-mesh staircase was painted on the inside to produce a moire effect. Photo by Jason O’Rear.

Scrapping the initial notion of maintaining the facade of the pre-existing, mid-rise industrial building, OMA designed a building that resembles a pentagon in section. It has a steep recess at ground level and a deep setback above tapering towards a central point, where it “kisses” the facade of the SANAA building.

From the north, the structure is mostly obscured by the taller SANAA building, but it extends deeper into the block.

“It’s actually quite surprising, because from outside, it’s not so screaming for presence, but as you enter, you feel the depth,” said Shigematsu.

New Museum extension interior — Gaps in the facade near the top allow views out and up. Photo by Jason O’Rear.

The faceted facade was clad in laminated glass with metal mesh that recalls the aluminium mesh of the SANAA building, while remaining distinct.

Immediately inside the street-facing walls, an atrium between the galleries and the facade allowed for a winding staircase that connects at each landing to the levels of both buildings.

At the fourth level, there is a soaring columnless space with an auditorium that faces a glass-filled void in the facade, which has views out into the Bowery.

Shigematsu referred to the staircase atrium as a “social and visible condenser” that allows the whole museum complex to become more “open and communicative”.

Shigematsu said the vernacular front-facade fire escape played into the articulation of the stair.

Further voids in the facade hold balconies and additional panes of glass without the metal mesh form stripes running down the side of the building, giving the building a sense of publicness and transparency.

New Museum extension informed by pairs — Outdoor balconies feature along the building’s upper slope. photo by Jason O’Rear.

OMA’s building sits at the junction of a three-way intersection and faces Prince Street, acting as a terminus. The entry into the newly programmed entrance extends the street into the building and upwards, up the new staircase.

At ground level, the slope of the OMA facade was articulated again at the north side, folding inwards. This exposed more of the SANAA building, leading the team to bring in additional material to extend the original facade.

This double fold created a triangular exterior courtyard. Next to it, the primary entrance into the museum leads into a lobby that includes the unticketed ground floors of both structures.

A massive portal door leads from the original lobby into the ground floor of the extension, which centres around a concealed restaurant, clad in expanded cork painted with silver leaf, blending it into the metal ceilings and polycarbonate-clad elevator core.

New Museum extension informed by SANAA building — It sits deeper in the block but also lower than the neighbouring SANAA building. Photo by Jason O’Rear

The restaurant acts as an enclosed courtyard within the lobby, and the plan is for it to be accessible via the lobby as well as via Freeman Alley at the back of the structure after the museum has closed. Inside, it features walls and ceiling also clad in cork, this time left unpainted.

It has textured glass that obscures the interior of the restaurant from the lobby, but allows restaurant goers to look out.

In order to allow for free movement on the ground level, the ticketing was pushed to the stairwells at the front of the building.

New Museum extension by OMA — The extension terminates a street. Photo by Jason Keen

The winding stairway crisscrosses the atrium at severe angles and is clad with more mesh, painted green on the inside to create a moire effect. Exposed I-beams and highly polished meshed floors create a collage of industrial materials.

New galleries echo the relatively simple format of the original, with high ceilings and white walls.

The gallery spaces run for the first three storeys, while above level four, incubator spaces and offices form what the studio called the “brain” of the building, conceptually and formally.

New Museum artistic director Massimo Gioni referred to the prismatic quality of the new building, saying it reflects the non-collecting museum’s mission to “refract” artistic messages from all over the world.

For Shigematsu, the build represents a culmination of arts and culture work in New York for OMA and recalls the studio’s other recent museum, the faceted glass extension for Buffalo AKG Art Museum. He was also part of the failed bid for a Whitney Museum extension in 2001.

“It took 20 years, but gave me the kind of holistic understanding of the ecosystem of art,” he said.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be able to do a building of this calibre in Manhattan. So we are very blessed.”

OMA’s founder, Rem Koolhaas has long theorised about New York, with his 1979 book Delirious New York being a significant work of architectural theory.

Other recent museum projects by OMA include the aluminium-clad Gallery of the Kings at the Museo Egizio in Italy

The photography is by Jason O’Rear and Jason Keen.

Zaha Hadid Architects designs curving cultural district on Hangzhou waterfront

by Starr Charles

A series of sweeping public buildings are set to make up the Qiantang Bay Cultural District designed by UK studio Zaha Hadid Architects along the Zhedong Canal in Hangzhou, China.

Designed by Zaha Hadid Architects, the development will contain cultural and educational buildings, including a library, youth centre and museum, framed by landscaped parklands, plazas and performance spaces.

A gallery, music hall and fitness centre will also be built as part of the development.

Qiantang Bay Cultural District render — Zaha Hadid Architects has designed a cultural district along the Zhedong Canal in Hangzhou

Renders of the proposal reveal a trio of sculptural waterside structures flanked with planted outdoor space and steps down to the canal.

A network of bridges and paths are set to weave through the site to connect both sides of the canal and the surrounding city with the new district.

“The Qiantang Bay Central Water Axis creates a series of new landscaped parklands, terraces and gardens along the Zhedong Canal – redefining the former industrial areas of the canal basin into a new green corridor and that weaves through the heart of the city,” the studio said.

Visualisation of cultural space by Zaha Hadid Architects — The district will include a library, youth centre and museum. Render by Atchain

Zaha Hadid Architects drew on Hangzhou’s terrain for the buildings’ sinuous designs. This includes a glazed library volume, which will be framed with large “inhabitable architectural columns” set to double as storage and reading spaces for visitors.

“Serving as structural support and defining the institutes identity as assembled ‘stones of knowledge’, these columns will accommodate the library’s extensive literary collections and archives,” the studio said.

Externally, the library’s facade will be fitted with folded glass elements to draw natural light into the interior, paired with masonry tiles informed by the region’s jade artistry.

Renders of the building also reveal a shiny underside to the overhanging roof, and curving wooden structures on the interior.

Exterior render of Qiantang Bay Cultural District — The library will have “inhabitable architectural columns”

Alongside this, the International Youth Centre will have a tiered, terrace-lined structure influenced by the adjacent waterfront.

According to the studio, the building’s facade geometries will extend to its “carved interior”, where auditoriums, studios and event spaces will cater to the city’s students.

Waterside youth centre at Qiantang Bay Cultural District — Terraces will wrap around the International Youth Centre

Throughout the development, flood-prevention strategies influenced by Hangzhou’s existing sponge-city infrastructure will be implemented.

Landscaping strategies will include permeable surfaces, planted swales and water-retention features for stormwater management.

Also in Hangzhou, Zaha Hadid Architects recently completed a curving footbridge that weaves around a trio of arches and Aedas completed a loop-shaped museum on an artificial island.

The renders are by Proloog unless otherwise stated.

SANAA Creates a Cluster of Volumes Housing a Museum and Library to Anchor a New District in Taichung

Taichung, Taiwan

By Izzy Kornblatt

Photo © Iwan BaanTaichung Green Museumbrary.

February 9, 2026

Curving surfaces that draw you from room to room, soft light, layered glass, walls in white and carpets in gray: perhaps SANAA projects ought to be understood not so much as separate creations than as the far-flung fragments of a single ethereal world. From this view, it seems fitting that the newest such fragment, a museum-cum-library in the Taiwanese city of Taichung, feels remarkably familiar—a continuation, in form, material, and concept, of much that has come before. Almost everything here is recognizable, from the formal conceit, an intersecting array of eight boxy, steel-framed volumes (see the firm’s 2022 addition to the Art Gallery of New South Wales), to the facades, many glazed, all wrapped in silvery aluminum mesh (see the 2008 New Museum in New York City), not to mention the winding ramps and staircases that jump from floor to floor, pavilion to pavilion (see the 2010 Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, among other projects). As a whole, the building takes its place in a longer series of projects that explore the mixing of the rational and irrational—the former represented by the rigor of a precise architectural vocabulary, the latter by the freedom accorded by the informal composition of elements.

Facades feature an outer layer of expanded metal mesh. Photo © Iwan Baan, click to enlarge.

In Taichung, this exploration unfolds against a specific urban context—emptiness. Initially designed as part of a 2013 competition held by the city, the building is an early element in the redevelopment of the former Shuinan military airport in western Taichung; today, it stands at the edge of a 165-acre park at the center of the new district, facing out toward vacant parcels of land that the city government is now in the process of selling to developers. Doubtless one of the city’s aims in undertaking the project, and in hiring a Pritzker Prize–winning architect, was to establish the area, bounded to the north by highways and to the west by an aircraft factory, as an attractive place of culture. The plan is by no means unrealistic. Just a few miles south, the Toyo Ito–designed National Taichung Theater (2016) anchors Taichung’s 7th Redevelopment Zone, a newly built district of gleaming offices, department stores, and luxury high-rises.

A pond is built from mirror-finished stainless steel. Photo © Iwan Baan

The majority of the volumes are lifted up on pilotis, opening up the building’s ground level to serve as a set of shaded, subtly graded plazas linking the park behind to the future neighborhood in front. Interspersed are entrances to various programmatic spaces—an escalator up to the main library lobby, a direct entrance to a children’s library, a twisting ramp to the museum galleries—and a set of round, one-story structures housing a shop, café, information booths, and a spiral stair down to underground spaces including an auditorium and a parking garage. Both the library and museum entries are accessed from an area that is enclosed in mesh; this space can be locked when the two institutions are closed, but the remainder of the ground floor will remain open 24 hours a day.

Plazas on the ground floor are connected to the park. Photo © Iwan Baan

Floating stairs and walkways link the library and museum. Photo © Iwan Baan

The building is officially called the Taichung Green Museumbrary—a portmanteau that sounds better in Chinese than English—and indeed its most distinctive programmatic element is that it co-locates the main branch of the Taichung Public Library system with the newly founded Taichung Art Museum. (Taichung has long been home to the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, but until now did not have a municipal art museum.) In keeping with the possibilities suggested by this combination, SANAA, working with architect of record Ricky Liu & Associates, has not limited either museum or library to a single volume. Instead, galleries and reading rooms are each distributed across different volumes, and visitors move freely across the complex: there is almost always more than one way to get from point A to point B. On two of the building’s six floors, floating walkways link the library and museum, enabling you to cross between them midway through a visit. The uppermost walkway, on the fifth floor, brings you outdoors into a mesh-enclosed box crisscrossed by ramps and dubbed the “culture forest,” an expansive space that does not yet, but ought to, have places to sit and relax.

For Sejima, the library and museum offer “two different ways of learning,” and placing both together raises the possibility of the programs’ shaping each other—from exhibitions in which books could be borrowed or library functions incorporating artworks to broader ways of “expanding our thinking and imagination.” At present, there is not much evidence of this happening. The museum and library remain separate: the reading rooms and galleries, as currently programmed, don’t stray from the modes of operation and organization that we have all learned to expect from these institutions.

For now, more immediate concerns dominate. At the complex’s fanfare-filled opening in December, Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-Yen voiced the hope that the Museumbrary “makes the world see Taichung, and places Taichung on the world’s stage”—a comment in which one can detect both familiar civic boosterism and a Taiwan-specific desire for the international recognition that the island has long been denied in the realm of politics. Not surprisingly, the galleries, all vast, flexible boxes designed before the museum was founded, seem best suited to sensational, Instagram-friendly installations of the sort associated with the global art circuit; and the initial set of exhibitions, which brings together a dizzying array of work from around the world with a vaguely environmental theme, only furthers this impression. The scale of the galleries was a “big challenge,” says museum director Nicole Yi-Hsin Lai, and some of the loveliest works on display, including a set of paintings of the transformed landscape of central Taiwan by the artist Hung Tien-Yu, feel minuscule by comparison.

I preferred the library reading rooms, with their curtain-filtered windows, intimate nooks, and snaking SANAA–designed tables and benches. These are spaces that reward wandering: an unexpected staircase transports you to a hidden terrace, a small exhibition teaches you about the history of encyclopedias. It’s all impeccably stylish. Meeting areas are encased in curving walls of acrylic. The soft hum of air-conditioning emerges from registers embedded in the bookshelves. Yet, as with so much of SANAA’s work, the effect is gentle, tranquil, rather than precious. Somehow, these architects again and again manage to create uncommon, daring, ultra-designed things that are nonetheless comfortable and unpretentious. There is something important about this that is not easy to put a finger on. I suspect that it relates to a certain attitude toward form-making. SANAA rose to prominence during the era of starchitecture and its formal acrobatics, and now Sejima and Nishizawa too are sought out by clients around the world looking to build signature buildings—hence the commission in Taichung. And yet, even as the shimmering, diaphanous Museumbrary fulfills the demands imposed upon it—that it attract the attention of foreign media, establish the legitimacy of a new district, and so on—it does so without the self-importance common with starchitecture; that is, without naively presenting itself as radical either in its formal inventiveness or its capacity to engender cultural change.

Perhaps this is where the understated frankness of Sejima and Nishizawa’s work comes from: an acceptance of the limits of what form can do. Where they find agency to intervene in the world of their own accord is neither in big, brash gestures nor in obsessively resolved details. Instead, it is in subtle, calibrated moves—in providing ample space for chance encounters and discoveries in the reading rooms, in treating the ground level as an unrestricted public space, in holding open the possibility for institutional boundaries to one day be blurred.

Image courtesy SANAA

Image courtesy SANAA

Image courtesy SANAA

Credits

Architect:
SANAA — Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa; principals; Takayuki Hasegawa, Takashige Yamashita, Takayuki Furuya, Asano Yagi, Kota Fukuhara, Amira Ho, design team

Architect of Record:
Ricky Liu & Associates

Engineers:
Takenaka Corporation (MEP); Sasaki and Partners, Hsin-yeh Engineering Consultants (structural)

Consultants:
VIA (facade)

General Contractor:
Reiju Construction

Client:
Taichung City Government

Size:
624,000 square feet

Cost:
Withheld

Completion:
December 2025

snøhetta plans spiraling galleries with curved glass facades for beijing art museum

Developed in collaboration with Beijing Institute of Architectural Design, the project marks Snøhetta’s second major cultural commission in the Chinese capital after the Beijing Library. Set within the rapidly developing eastern district, the museum takes shape as a large-scale civic building positioned to support Beijing’s expanding cultural infrastructure while addressing the everyday rhythms of the surrounding neighborhood.

The program spans more than 110,000 square meters and accommodates fine art, contemporary practice, design, and forms of intangible cultural heritage. Alongside exhibition spaces, the building includes areas for research, storage, education, and public gathering. The ambition centers on a museum that operates as a civic interior capable of both hosting large audiences and supporting quieter forms of study.

A DESIGN DRIVEN BY THE CONCEPT OF ‘VISION’

Snøhetta, together with BIAD, frames its proposed Beijing Art Museum around the idea of ‘vision,’ understood as both the act of looking and the responsibility of stewardship. This concept guides spatial organization as collections are gathered inward while views are opened outward, This way, art is displayed in dialogue with the surrounding city.

The museum sits directly above an active metro line and incorporates a transit node at its base. From this infrastructural core, spaces expand outward in a radial composition. Curved, layered facades introduce a soft edge to the volume to mediate between interior galleries and exterior public space. The surface articulation encourages movement around the building and supports a continuous relationship between architecture and landscape.

galleries spiral outward to frame views of the surrounding district | visualization © Proloog

A LARGE CIRCULAR ATRIUM

At the center of Snøhetta’s Beijing Art Museum, a large circular atrium organizes circulation and orientation. The space rises through multiple levels, drawing daylight deep into the plan and establishing visual connections across floors. Semi-open exhibition zones and social areas line the atrium, creating moments for pause and encounter alongside more controlled gallery environments.

Primary galleries, storage, and support spaces wrap the atrium in a gradual spiral, extending into outward-facing volumes that frame views across Tongzhou. These projecting forms allow visitors to alternate between focused engagement with artworks and broader awareness of the city beyond the walls. The experience emphasizes movement, orientation, and shared visibility across the building.

a radial massing strategy organizes the building around a central atrium | visualization © Proloog

LANDSCAPING CONNECTS THE MUSEUM WITH THE CITY

The surrounding landscape continues the radial geometry of the architecture, shaping plazas, planted areas, and outdoor exhibition zones. Paths and open spaces support informal gathering and public use throughout the day. Architecture, interior, and landscape read as a continuous spatial field that extends the museum’s presence into the district.

Environmental strategies include rooftop photovoltaic panels and an integrated water management system aligned with sponge city principles. These measures support energy generation and seasonal water control while contributing to long-term resilience.

Construction began on December 31st, 2025, with completion planned for 2029.

the museum builds on Snøhetta’s previously built Beijing Library | visualization © Snøhetta

project info:

name: Beijing Art Museum

architect: Snøhetta | @snohetta

location: Beijing, China

collaborator: BIAD

status: ongoing

area: 118,861 square meters

visualizations: © Snøhetta, © Proloog | @proloog.tv

client: Beijing Fine Art Academy
construction management: Beijing Investment Group Co.,Ltd,
concept, schematic design: Snøhetta, BIAD
construction design: BIAD

Art Museum of The China Sculpture Institute / CVA Design

I. Project Overview: Geography and Culture – Nestled in Shenshan Park in the downtown area of Wuhu, Anhui Province, the Art Museum of the China Sculpture Institute is an urban renewal project renovated from a disused greenhouse. Its home, Wuhu Sculpture Park, stands as China’s first thematic art space that organically integrates sculpture culture with natural landscapes. Spanning an expansive 8.2 hectares, the park infuses sculptural art—known as “three-dimensional fine art”—into the poetic scenery of mountains and waters, forging a distinctive urban cultural landscape. Boasting picturesque views across all four seasons, the park creates an open and vibrant public art interface together with the sculptures, and has now emerged as one of the most popular urban sculpture parks among citizens nationwide.

II. Translation of Local Cultural Heritage – “Jiuzi” is the ancient name of Wuhu, signifying “Jiuzi bird perching by the water, brimming with vitality”. Drawing inspiration from the imagery of “Jiuzi bird alighting on the waterfront”, the art museum echoes the local natural and historical heritage. In accordance with the traditional Chinese five-element theory (Wuxing), the exhibition area is divided into five thematic sections corresponding to Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. More than a mere classification system for material forms, the five-element theory represents a cognitive framework centered on movement, transformation, and interconnection. The museum adopts the five states embodied by the elements—Metal (convergence), Wood (growth), Water (permeation), Fire (dissolution), and Earth (integration)—to construct a narrative structure where sculptures and space interact and resonate with each other.

III. Design Approach and Urban Integration – Breaking free from the closed exhibition model, the art museum has transformed into an open urban cultural hub. The design preserves the original architectural form and skillfully adopts the “borrowed scenery” technique of classical Chinese gardens, striving to blur the boundaries between architecture and nature. This approach allows the exhibition spaces inside and outside the venue—including indoor galleries, outdoor green spaces, and waterfront exhibition areas—to permeate one another, forming a harmonious and interconnected exhibition field.

The space is activated three-dimensionally both vertically and horizontally: natural light filtering through side windows creates soft illumination; elevated winding corridors offer unique bird’s-eye views of large-scale sculptures; and the water-adjacent exhibition halls together with circular pathways further extend the viewing circulation. Collectively, these elements evoke a visual poetry where artworks seem to float amidst light, shadow, and rippling water.

Art Museum of The China Sculpture Institute / CVA Design - Image 12 of 24

Art Museum of The China Sculpture Institute / CVA Design - Exterior Photography, Concrete

IV. Sustainable Construction and Cultural Empowerment – The art museum fully embodies the eco-friendly concept throughout its construction process. The main structure adopts a steel frame system, and the facade integrates extra-large concrete hanging panels with triple-glazed Low-E glass curtain walls, paired with a high-efficiency thermal insulation system to achieve low-energy consumption operation. The design also makes full use of natural elements: the shifting skylight and cloud shadows across time endow static sculptures with dynamic vitality; meanwhile, the mirrored flooring, through the interplay of virtual and real reflections, expands the physical dimensions of the space and enriches the viewers’ sensory experience. As a result, the building itself becomes a giant sculpture that interacts harmoniously with the surrounding mountains, water systems, vegetation, and light. Like a “time sculpting machine”, it continuously explores the infinite possibilities among nature, architecture, and art.

An extension to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights opens

Daniel Jonas Roche

The National Center for Civil and Human Rights (NCCHR) was founded in Georgia’s capital city by Shirley Franklin, Atlanta’s first African American woman mayor. It was designed by Phil Freelon, founder of The Freelon Group, and opened to the public in 2014. The Freelon Group was acquired by Perkins&Will that same year. Freelon died five years later, in 2019.

Today, the NCCHR houses the original manuscript of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and other Civil Rights Movement ephemera. A recent $58 million expansion to the NCCHR by Perkins&Will, Cooper Carry, and ATELIER BRÜCKNER affords the institution new and improved exhibition spaces.

NCCHR has two new wings attached to the original building that cumulatively total 28,733 square feet. Its Human Rights Gallery—dedicated to telling the stories of refugees and other oppressed peoples—has been upgraded and coalesces near a new Activation Lab, a space where visitors can design personal civic engagement plans.

The new east wing will host conferences, corporate retreats, weddings, milestone celebrations, and community gatherings. There, visitors can enjoy roof access and gaze out at the city beyond.

The extension is clad in bronze panels similar to the original volume completed in 2014 by Freelon. It tapers upward, much like the exterior glass and steel fountain by artist Larry Kirkland, featuring engraved texts by Nelson Mandela, Margaret Mead, and Dr. King.

With the extension, designed by Perkins&Will, the NCCHR can accommodate an estimated 250,000 annual visitors. Cooper Carry’s Experiential Graphic Design Studio and ATELIER BRÜCKNER were the exhibition designers.

And, indeed, the timing couldn’t be better.

Set against the backdrop of crackdowns at the Smithsonian Institution over alleged “divisive” and “improper” narratives, and the defunding of museums and schools nationwide, the NCCHR affirms it will stay the course and continue the work of its forbears, who faced similar adversity to progress.

Dr. Bernice King, the youngest child of Coretta Scott King and Dr. King, is the inaugural curator of a gallery entirely devoted to her father.

Elsewhere at NCCHR, the Without Sanctuary collection and a memorial by artist Lonnie Holley speak to Reconstruction after the U.S. Civil War. Another gallery exhibits Black Southern artists active in the 1980s who confronted white supremacy and built solidarity.

Jill Savitt, NCCHR president and CEO, said in a statement: “Our reopening arrives at a pivotal moment. The [NCCHR] exists to show how history speaks to the present. With these new galleries and spaces, we can offer not just stories of the past, but pathways for people to reflect, engage, and shape the future.”

“American history has never been a straight road. It has always been a dialogue between progress and pushback, between our highest ideals and forces that resist them,” Savitt added. “This expansion gives us new ways to share those stories with integrity, and to remind people that all of us can help bend the arc toward justice.”

Savitt touted the women-led design and development team. “This expansion carries the imprint of women’s leadership at every stage,” she said. “From our founder Shirley Franklin to our exhibit design, construction, and curation, women have shaped this expansion with care and vision.”

Perkins&Will recently completed another project involving Phil Freelon, the North Carolina Freedom Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. The public space features architecture inspired by civil leader and activist Lyda Moore Merrick.

In April 2026, at NCCHR, a new gallery for children under 12 years old will open to the public, which center officials call “a secret headquarters for change agents with interactive activities that build civic skills and curiosity about justice.”

SANAA’s taichung art museum opens in taiwan with translucent dual-layer metal facade

Taichung Art Museum by SANAA opens to the public

SANAA’s Taichung Art Museum, part of the newly completed Taichung Green Museumbrary, opens today, December 13th, 2025 in Taiwan. The project integrates the city’s central library with a metropolitan art museum, establishing a combined cultural facility that presents a new institutional model.

The Taichung Green Museumbrary sits on the northern edge of Central Park, a 67-hectare green space within the 254-hectare Shuinan Trade and Economic Park, formerly a military airport decommissioned in 2004. Positioned at the heart of this redevelopment area, the project has been described as Taiwan’s most significant cultural initiative of 2025. SANAA’s design follows the guiding idea of creating ‘a library in a park and an art museum in a forest.’ The building is lifted above ground level, allowing natural light and park breezes to move freely through shaded plazas that provide open, permeable access from all sides.

Its inaugural exhibition, A Call of All Beings, brings together more than 70 artists and collectives from 20 countries. The show unfolds across galleries and public spaces through video, painting, sculpture, installation, archival material, artists’ books, and 24 newly commissioned, site-specific works, accompanied by performances, workshops, and talks exploring human and multispecies coexistence.

SANAA unveils the Taichung Art Museum as part of the Green Museumbrary | all images by YHLAA – Yi Hsien Lee

An Open Plan Connecting Culture and Nature

The plan dissolves traditional divisions between museum and library spaces within an open and inclusive interior. Reading areas and exhibition zones are designed to overlap, encouraging cross-programming and interaction. The library will house over one million physical and digital resources. On the rooftop, the design team at SANAA organizes an outdoor garden that offers views of Central Park and the Taichung skyline. Conceived as both a public landscape and a cultural extension of the building, the rooftop enhances the continuity between built and natural environments.

The dual-layer facade combines high-performance glass or metal cladding with an outer layer of aluminum expanded metal mesh. This silvery veil produces a sense of transparency while improving environmental performance. The facade and lifted volume emphasize lightness, openness, and integration with the surrounding park. At ground level, shaded plazas act as public thresholds where the city meets the museum and library.

the dual-layer facade combines glass or metal cladding with expanded aluminum mesh