Merging architecture with the landscape

Establishing an equal relationship between the “diminutive beast that is architecture” and China’s monumental landscape is a daunting challenge. This was the message from Japanese architect Junya Ishigami that accompanied the launch of the Zaishui Art Museum. “In China, buildings standing in isolation have something solitary about them. It is as if they have been cast into an infinite terrain.” Consequently, rather than designing an imposing structure that sets itself apart from nature, his studio envisaged the museum project as an uncompromising coexistence with the landscape. Being more closely intertwined with the lake and its shores than any other building typology, the elongated structure pushes the boundaries of our imagination.

Meandering across the water, every now and then the museum seems to blend with its surroundings. Ishigami explains: “Key to addressing the problem of the landscape in China is to view the architecture as a ‘gentle giant’ of an environment, and search for a totally new relationship between natural and man-made.”

A new connection between nature and humans

The museum is the start of a new development area in Rizhao, a city with a population of millions to the east of China, in Shandong Province. It has been built on an artificial lake and provides exhibition space, a visitor centre and a shopping centre all in one. As a cultural meeting place and with the necessary infrastructure for the new neighbourhood, it enables residents to mingle and get to know each other.

This new building opened in 2024 with space totalling 20,000 square metres. It is supported by 300 columns that are fixed in the water at a depth of two metres. The sidewalls are glazed along the entire length and create a feeling of lightness and transparency inside and out. When the weather warms up, they can be opened to merge interior and exterior, whilst also providing natural ventilation.

Openings along the bottom edge of the glazing allow water to flow inside where the base curves inward to form artificial inlets. Instead of setting itself apart from nature, the architecture establishes a new connection between humans and the landscape.

In other words, the landscape actually crosses the threshold into the museum itself, while creating an amiable bond with the surrounding nature. “Achieving this integration is the central aim of the design,” the architects explain.

Walking across the water

The Zaishui Art Museum invites visitors to walk along a pathway that mirrors nature in its range of different experiences. With continuous flooring throughout and passing through exhibition space, this pathway sometimes narrows and also becomes surrounded by water in certain places. At one point, the ceiling rises up and lets daylight flood inside. And in another place, the ceiling is so low that it shows reflections from the water.

Using all these design tools, Junya Ishigami turns the building into an immersive experience familiar from nature. There is no shortcut to access individual areas of the building more quickly. You have to walk along the entire length, at the same speed as if you were walking along the shores of the lake.

In response to his initial question “How can the environment and architecture be treated equally in a Chinese context?”, the architect has created a structure that is on an equal footing with the dimensions of nature: “A long architectural form, matching the scale of the expansive landscape, extends across the lake like a streak of wind.”

Master of the void

It is not the first time that Ishigami has pushed the boundaries of architecture in his designs. With his plaza for the Kanagawa Institute of Technology just outside Tokyo, the 51-year-old “master of the void” literally turned a public space upside down. He is regarded as a trailblazer in the world of architecture and has already received numerous prizes. These include the Golden Lion for the Japanese pavilion at the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture.

And now he has presumably designed the longest museum in the world: the Zaishui Art Museum stretches across the entire length of the lake. However, Ishigami’s objective here differed from the familiar approach of “faster, higher, further” frequently adopted for sky- and landscrapers. Instead, the architecture provides a natural experience on equal terms and a place where people can escape from the hustle and bustle of our modern world.

Text: Gertraud Gerst
Translation: Rosemary Bridger-Lippe
Photos: arch-exist, Junya Ishigami + Associates