3Gatti Architecture Studio of Rome and Shanghai have won a competition to design an automobile museum in Nanjing, China.
An external concentric ramp allows visitors to drive around the exterior of the museum in their own car, past the exhibits to a roof-top car park.
Visitors then descend through the museum on foot via an internal ramp.
Here are more details from 3Gatti:
Automobile museum in Nanjing.
It is difficult to identify one single and continuing exploratory theme in the work of Francesco Gatti. His aim is to experiment with heterogeneous solutions, each time meeting the challenge offered by his new creation’s specific conditions
From the ethereal virtual ceiling of the redevelopment project “In Factory” – his first Chinese work – to the curved forms of the Ze Bar, from the sculptural faceting of the Red Object to the spotted epidermis of his transgenic houses, the architect with Roman origins has never let himself be bound by a specific or recognisable aesthetic style.
The same applies in the winning project for the new car museum at Nanchino where Gatti has envisaged an origami on urban scale.
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The visual design backs up the fundamental practicality of the project in that it is the distributive organisation and the functional layout that determine the shape of the building.
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The museum is articulated in two concentric helicoidal ramps; in the external one the visitor drives up the exhibition area in his own car, an experience that the architect describes as a “safari” because the visitor, as a motorist, is an exhibit himself.
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The moving cars travel upwards diachronically (chronologically) in the folds of the origami from futuristic cars down below to vintage cars above and then up again to the car park on the roof of the building.
Here the visitor leaves his car and does the return journey on foot down the inner spiral ramp. Descending he sees all the exhibits as well as varying-sized glass boxes which house the complementary functions of the museum (offices, meeting rooms or laboratories).
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Once on the ground floor the visitor can take a lift and return to his car on the roof, or perhaps he may find it waiting for him down below for as Gatti himself observes “In the China of opposites, those who have the economic means to possess a car also have the means to have a personal chauffeur.”
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The architect describes the museum as a “movie sequence in which the principal actor is the car”, a building where two car-related panorama go hand in hand: on the one hand the architect’s conscious attention to motorway aestheticism and urban scale – the structures and materials remind one of a viaduct - and on the other, his transportation into the museum of the ergonomics of the interior of a car.
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The furbishing and details within the edifice are related to and on a scale with its specific functions and it is not difficult for the visitor to imagine that he is in a car on a highway, rather than in a museum.
Text by Giampiero Sanguigni.
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Automobile museum credits:
Programme: automobile and car components exhibition, educational installations, design centre, office, workshops laboratories, technical laboratories, conference rooms, space for special events, restaurants, retail, sales office.
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Procedure: International invitation competition first price
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Architecture Firm:
3Gatti
Chief architect: Francesco Gatti
Project manager: Summer Nie
Collaborators: Nicole Ni, Muavii Sun, Chen qiuju, Jimmy Chu, Luca Spreafico, Damiano Fossati, Kelly Han.
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Client: Jiangsu Head Investment group CO.,LTD
Location: Jiangning area, high-tech zone, Nanjing, China.
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Total floor area: 15000 m²
Design period: May 2008
Materials: Steel structure, resin coating, glass partitions.
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The cross section that shows visitors viewing cars at a distance is beyond me. The cars or parked at a steep angle that precludes close inspection. I don’t get that at all. Here design wins out over function. Over-designed I think.
Architect creates utopia problems in buildings program and then tries to solve them. What is the point to use fuel and go up the roof and then use electricity to take visitors back up? Whole functional system just doesn’t make any sense.
And what “in the China of opposites, those who have the economic means to possess a car also have the means to have a personal chauffeur” should mean? I think architect was thinking to square.
Overall structure design idea is just too simple, almost academic level.
a funny parking lot…
a little steep toward the edges no?
The concept of origami is a recurrent idea, but does not make this project better or justified. It is just a car park with some ramps to connect all levels.
I totaly agree with Silke .
oh jeez quite your whinging. some people can be sooo boring.
Don´t get the narrow minded comments in here at all…. This is cool!
sometimes "taste" should be an architectural argument
this is made with very bad taste
I love the routing and the main idea. Great to get a preview from without your own car and be part of the exhibition while doing so!
The inefficiency of the system doesn’t bother me like it bothers Silke. The routing is part of (and contributes to) the overall experience and therefore justified.
Like mvb said: in a way ‘it is just a car park’… But isn’t that just fabulous?
Could you think of a better place to exhibit automobiles than in there ‘natural habitat’?
A tessellated version of UN’s Mercedes Benz Museum
Why not just take the lift to the top and walk down? Looking at other cars from the seat of your car might be a funny idea but it’s not a better way to see them.
Driving around a spiral safari seems quite an undignified task for a car, and the journey is entirely pointless. If it was me I would have made the museum about speed and long distances which is what cars do best. The ‘car’ part should be the arrival to the museum, and then you see the exhibits up close as a pedestrian.
@ pleasuredome
And some people waste money on dumb stuff. If you think this project doesn’t deserve the criticism it’s getting why not explain why?
It is interesting to see that
@Edward Though the cars on steep angles may preclude close obsrvation, but it allows you to examine the exhibit from an angle you would otherwise never see. It’s expanding the scope of the displayed object and for this I support the concept.
@White Phosphorus Can’t say the roof of the car is of much interest. On the other hand, a glass floor that would allow viewing of the mechanicals or a “rotisserie” that would allow the same thing would have been useful. But this project is all about the swoopy form and not about function.
I have seen this… Ah, yes! The Jussieu Libraries (OMA, 1992)…
wow.. cool..
Great Idea..
but, it could think about the contextual area. ^^
the area isn’t on urban public. maybe it sustainable on the grass area..
Good think.. Nice Concept..
Francesco Gatt'si work is known to be unique and not following a specific aesthetic style. His concept in this building was really amazing, taking the Origami and using it on an urban scale is just brilliant. Another great idea i liked was the idea of having the cars exhibited on different steeped roofs, allowing people to view the car better from a different perspective.
From the side, it looks like the blade of a garlic blender!
This is an impressive design! I am most impressed with the rooftop parking. Cars parked on the roof top serves two functions: first, it allows cars to be parked on multistory parking saving spaces. Secondly, the cars on the rooftop act as embellishments for the building. From afar, cars are seen parked all over the roof of the building, suggesting the relationship between cars and this building. I hope that I will get the chance to pay a visit to this car museum. I am sure its exhibits of cars and auto parts will be as interesting as its exterior.