Chengdu Tianfu Art Museum and Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art are two art museums designed by CSD Design located at Tianfu Art Park near Yinggui Lake in Chengdu, China. The Chengdu Tianfu Art Museum and the Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 2021.
The Chengdu Tianfu Art Museum covers approximately 40,000 sqm in total, including an exhibition space of nearly 13,000 sqm. There are 13 professional exhibition rooms, 4 public education spaces, 2 academic lecture halls, and 6 art storage homes. It is a large-scale comprehensive urban art museum that focuses on the local Tianfu culture, collecting and researching the developmental context of local art, as well as observing and presenting the most recent research on international and domestic art history and the current state of art creation.
The Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art covers about 33,000 sqm in total, including an exhibition space of over 10,000 sqm. It contains 8 professional exhibition halls, 3 public education spaces, 2 professional art storage houses, 1 video hall, and several multi-mode art spaces. The museum aspires to be a forward-thinking international comprehensive art center. It intends to illustrate the future growth of art as well as the various ways in which art may be incorporated into daily life.
The design team was inspired by Chengdu’s city flower, Hibiscus, to develop this overall form. The Chengdu Tianfu Art Museum’s general form represents the high mountains that surround Chengdu. In the two art museums, the design team aimed to combine different design languages and materials to communicate Chengdu’s urban aspect and humanistic character.
Chengdu Tianfu Art Museum exhibits galleries that are largely composed of bamboo paneling and have a gentle look, whereas Chengdu Contemporary Art Museum has a sharp-edged gray-tone geometric design.
According to CDS Design, “contemporary art space design is different from commercial space design in that it’s not a simple decoration design in the traditional sense, but a design that can reflect the temperament of architectural space and satisfies the function and spirit transmission of space.”
Instead of just a form, the team emphasizes that the shape of the petals signifies tolerance and the humanistic attitude of Chengdu people’s art and living. The bamboo veneer was chosen by the design team to express the regional and modern essence of Sichuan.
“As for the lighting of the whole space, due to the curved form of the top, the design team upholds the concept of light transmission from the bamboo shed, and use the intelligent system to control the lighting area and the illumination intensity based on the distribution of sunlight and indoor light,” said the design team.
The same bamboo veneer was also utilized in the staircase and floor balustrades to contribute to the architectural and sculptural feeling of the space, which is in harmony with the art museum’s artistic temperament. In the installation display hall, there is a circular resting area where visitors may relax while taking in the surroundings.
In the two art museums, the design team will employ distinct design languages and materials to communicate Chengdu’s urban aspect and humanistic character. Bamboo veneer is employed at the art museum to highlight Sichuan’s regional and modern essence. The Museum of Contemporary Art’s design is more clean and basic, with spatial rhythm and implied forces. It is, however, cosmopolitan and passionate.
