Shenzhen officially opened the Shenzhen Natural History Museum on 28 July 2026, unveiling one of the world’s largest newly built natural history museums and the largest of its kind in South China. Designed by an international consortium comprising 3XN, B+H Architects, and Zhubo Design, the 105,300-square-metre institution transforms the relationship between architecture, science, and public space through a landscape-inspired design that invites visitors to experience the museum beyond its exhibition halls.
Located beside Yanzi Lake in Shenzhen’s Pingshan District, the museum emerges from the surrounding river delta terrain as a continuous sculpted landform. Its sweeping granite-clad roof extends into publicly accessible terraces and plazas, creating an elevated landscape that remains open even outside museum hours. The project forms part of Shenzhen’s broader investment in new cultural institutions while reinforcing the city’s growing reputation as a global centre for science, education, innovation, and design.
Architecture Inspired by Natural Form
The museum adopts an organic architectural language shaped by local geology, river systems, and surrounding hills. The flowing exterior is punctuated by carved openings that reveal exhibition spaces embedded within the structure, while five cone-shaped volumes organize the primary galleries.
Visitors move through cave-like passages, atriums, terraces, and framed landscape views, creating a spatial journey that reflects the themes explored throughout the museum’s exhibitions.
Commenting on the design philosophy, Kim Herforth Nielsen, Founder, Senior Partner, and Creative Director at 3XN, said, “Nothing in nature is square. Nature is amorphous, dynamic, and always in formation. From the beginning, the ambition was to create not a building but a piece of landscape that had always been there, shaped by local geology, water and time.”
He added that the original competition-winning concept has now become “a place where the story of our planet is experienced as a physical journey through terrain, light and space.”
Eight Galleries Explore 4.6 Billion Years of Earth’s History
Inside, the museum presents eight themed exhibition halls covering 4.6 billion years of Earth’s history, beginning with the origins of the universe and continuing through the emergence of life, dinosaurs, human evolution, and the ecological systems of South China.
The galleries combine animal, plant, mineral, and fossil collections with immersive digital media and large-scale installations that connect global natural history with Shenzhen’s regional landscapes. Exhibition designers Atelier Brückner and Museum Studio collaborated closely with the architects to integrate scenography into the building’s curved interiors and vertical cone-shaped spaces, allowing architecture and exhibitions to function as a unified experience.
Public Roof Park Extends the Museum into the City
Beyond its exhibition program, the museum introduces a publicly accessible rooftop landscape that connects architecture with Shenzhen’s civic realm. The roof park extends the surrounding terrain, encouraging residents and visitors to engage with the building as an everyday public destination.
According to David Stavros, Senior Design Principal and former Executive Vice President, Asia, at B+H Architects, “Transforming this ambition into a world-class natural history museum demanded far more than delivering a building of exceptional scale and complexity.”
He noted that the project required close coordination between architecture, engineering, landscape, exhibition planning, and construction teams, adding: “The result demonstrates what multidisciplinary collaboration can achieve when design ambition, delivery expertise and technical rigor come together.”
International Collaboration Behind the Project
The museum was realized through collaboration between 3XN, which led the concept design from Copenhagen; B+H Architects, responsible for executive architecture, landscape architecture, and project delivery; and Zhubo Design, which managed structural engineering, MEP engineering, and local technical compliance in Shenzhen.
The consortium maintained the integrity of the original competition-winning proposal while coordinating the project’s complex design, engineering, and construction requirements across multiple disciplines and geographic locations.
Museum Director Nan Zhaoxu described the project as an educational landscape where architecture and science become inseparable: “Shenzhen Natural History Museum is designed to interpret the laws of natural evolution and present the geographies of Shenzhen in a global ecological perspective.”
He added that the architecture transforms the museum into “a living educational landscape” where visitors experience “science, nature and place as one continuous journey.”
Shenzhen Natural History Museum Project Facts
Project: Shenzhen Natural History Museum
Location: Pingshan District, Shenzhen, China
Design Consortium: 3XN, B+H Architects, Zhubo Design
Lead Designer: 3XN
Lead Consultant / Executive Architect: B+H Architects
Landscape & Interior Design: B+H Architects
Structural & MEP Engineer: Zhubo Design
Client: Shenzhen Government / Bureau of Public Works of Shenzhen Municipality
Tenant: Shenzhen Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television, Tourism, and Sports
Gross Floor Area: 105,300 m²
Construction started: March 2022
Completed: July 2026
Photography: Adam Mørk
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