מוזיאון האסטרונומיה בשנגחאי || פרויקטים

Project: Shanghai Astronomy Museum
Design Architect: Ennead Architects
Design Partner: Thomas Wong, Management Partner / Principal: V. Guy Maxwell / Grace Chen
Project Manager: Weiwei Kuang
Project Designer: Charles Wolf
Project Architect: Anthony Guaraldo
Building Facts :Completed: Summer 2021
Location: Shanghai, China
Size: 420,000 GSF / 39,020 GSM
Photography: ArchExists

 המוזיאון החדש והמונומנטלי לאסטרונומיה בשנגחאי יוצר חוויה סוחפת המציבה את המבקרים באופן ישיר בעיסוק בתופעות אסטרונומיות אמיתיות. באמצעות קנה מידה, צורה  ומניפולציה של אור, הבניין מגביר את המודעות ליחסים הבסיסיים שלנו לשמש ואל תנועת מסלול כדור הארץ. בגודל 420,000 רגל מרובע, הענף האסטרונומי החדש של שנגחאי ;מוזיאון המדע והטכנולוגיה יהיה המוזיאון הגדול ביותר בעולם המוקדש לחקר האסטרונומיה.


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists

Entirely dedicated to the subject of astronomy, the Museum includes extensive exhibit halls and immersive visitor experiences, as well as a planetarium dome housed in a 30-meter diameter sphere. The Museum will be a major global cultural attraction that elevates the scientific and technological capacity of the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum, while also redefining the Lingang area of Shanghai. Programs in the Museum: Permanent Exhibit Galleries, Temporary Exhibit Galleries, Digital Sky Theater, Optical Planetarium, Education and Research Center, Solar Telescope, Youth Observation Camp, and Observatory


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists

Architect’s Statement: When designing the Shanghai Astronomy Museum, we wanted to create a physical space that made evident the astronomical truths that make our existence on this planet possible and help people understand how truly exceptional the life-supporting aspects of Earth are when compared to the turbulent realities elsewhere in the galaxy. Civilizations of the past utilized the built environment to achieve just this; far more attuned to the reliance on the astronomical phenomena that shaped their very existence, cultures across the planet built structures to mediate a fundamental relationship which they did not yet scientifically understand but intrinsically valued. Modern life has detached most of us from that elemental bond. We take for granted the functional aspects of the earth’s daily rotation as it orbits around the sun, our moon’s circumscribing watch around the globe a reality that more and more often becomes filtered through an app on a tiny screen.


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists

Situated within this contemporary context, the institutional mission of the museum and the architectural concept of the building are aligned: to offer an experience that ignites curiosity and inspires exploration. A foundational design concept was to shape the architecture around those magnificent elements dynamically alive among the stars, to abstractly embody the phenomena and laws of astrophysics that are the rule in space. To create an architecture that speaks to a realm beyond meant to craft a spatial and experiential language that originates from interstellar matters. One fundamental notion became a primary source of inspiration: the fact that the entire Universe, from the time of the Big Bang, is in a state of perpetual motion. From the accelerating and expanding galaxies over billions of years to the complex gravitational relationships of multiple astronomical entities acting upon each other, the building design draws form from the dynamic energy of celestial movement.


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists

The building itself is conceived as an astronomical instrument which coordinates with the path of the sun across a day and through the seasons to shape figures of light and illuminate our planet’s motion. The architecture is tuned to highlight and heighten the experience of the sun and its changing relationship to the earth as we orbit our nearby star. Within the building visitors encounter three distinct moments that each make apparent core astronomical principles that play out on Earth. These three instruments - the Oculus, the Sphere, and the Inverted Dome - force a confrontation between visitors and those planetary facts which have been relegated to the background of our human construct but shape our very existence.


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists


Shanghai Astronomy Museum. Photograph Credit: ArchExists