old and new coexist in horizontal design’s zhang yan cultural museum in china

horizontal design has renovated a series of structures in zhang yan, an ancient chinese village located in chonggu town, the western suburbs of shanghai, and transformed them into the zhang yan cultural museum. the museum comprises three exhibition halls organized as individual spaces around a water patio, and thematically ranging from ‘contemporary’ to ‘traditional’ and to ‘future’. merging the old with the new, the chinese architecture office has managed to preserve as much of the original buildings as possible, and combined those with new constructions. coexisting harmoniously, the resulting composition addresses contemporary needs while celebrating tradition.all images by su shengliang / schran images

horizontal design‘s cultural museum is located in the zhang yan village, the birthplace of shanghai ancient culture and one of the representatives of fuquan mountain culture. under the background of the new sub-urban development policy, zhang yan village is like the other villages and towns in china, embracing reconstruction and revival. the exhibition halls of the museum comprise three kinds of individual spaces, thematically ranging from ‘contemporary’ to ‘traditional’ and to ‘future’. the ‘contemporary’ exhibition hall is located at the site of the zhang family’s house, which has suffered severe destruction. the architects were able to preserve only the exterior wall, and thus the exhibition hall was built inside it, with an offset of 30cm to show the respect toward the old construction. 

‘”growth, subsistence, birth” is our strategy for the renovation and rehabilitation of zhang yan village and other similar villages in china,’ notes horizontal design. ‘it is neither to overthrow and reconstruct, nor to repair the old as old, but to follow the development and context of history, to put the contemporary needs and consciousness into the village, to reorganize the layout, coordinate between the new and the old, and program the commercial ecology.’

the ‘tradition’ exhibition hall takes the place of the village history hall, which has been well preserved in comparison to the house. its internal wooden load-bearing structure has been repaired, partition walls have been removed, and the original atrium preserved. during the research on the village history hall, the architects found that there had been another building to its north. therefore, the third, ‘future’ exhibition hall is built from the renewal of the original site, while a water patio and leisure zone have also been placed in the vacant area.

project info:

name: zhang yan cultural museum

architect: horizontal design

area: 1064 sqm

location: shanghai, china

chief creative design director: ju bin

chief architect: zhou zhimin, he bin

architectural design team: zhang jia, deng shuyu, song wenyu, hu yao, huang ping, xu weiwei

site architect: zhang jia

interior design team: wei jinjing, sheng lingxiang, luo fanyu, yang yixi

interior furnishings: cen yuhua

interior construction drawing: nie hongming

LDI: jiang architects & engineers (JAE)

LDI team: jiang chun, cheng zhichun, shi yi, li jing, ren weiwei, wu yong, zhang xi, du gang, zhu min, zhang hang, wang zhen, wu li, peng jian, chen dong, wang wei, xu jian

interior mechanical & electrical design: shenzhen huapu decoration design engineering co., ltd

lighting consultant: shenzhen junshitan industry co., ltd, viabizzuno co., ltd

display consultant: shanghai fengyuzhu culture technology co.,ltd

client: CSCEC (shanghai) new urbanization investment development co., ltd

constructor: china construction eighth engineering division .corp.ltd

façade consultant & constructor: shanghai sunvast construction decoration eng. co.,ltd

ancient building restoration consultant: shanghai jiao tong university urban planning & architectural design co.ltd

ancient building restoration constructor: zhongxiao construction engineering group co., ltd

landscape constructor: shanghai hongsheng construction landscape engineering co., ltd