The Ningbo Museum sits on a massive unpopulated plaza in Yinzhou, a district in the city of Ningbo with a 5,000-year history that looks like it was established last year. The streets that surround it are wide enough to accommodate six lanes of traffic, but are virtually car-free. The sidewalk is lined with skinny leafless trees, shrubs and disconnected tiles of brownish-yellow grass. In the distance, the silhouettes of newly built residential towers and half-finished office buildings imply a bustling future, but for the moment the area exists in a kind of temporal limbo – its past abandoned, its future not yet arrived.
At the north end of the plaza is a broad, grey stone building occupied by the district government. It is boxy and relentlessly symmetrical in the typical style of municipal architecture in the PRC. It projects stability and strength both physically and symbolically: the building looks indestructible and the fact that the government resides in it reassures developers of the area's viability. The museum, a three-story, 30,000-square-metre block positioned on the plaza's northwestern edge, conveys the opposite. On approach, its form looks haphazard. It is apparently a box, but its sides are skewed and large chunks are missing. Its materials are inconsistent and ill-fitting. The facade is pocked with small, arbitrarily arranged windows that reveal nothing of the building's contents. It is an awkward building, but next to the muscularity of the government offices, it conveys a vulnerability that is touching, almost heart-warming, and as I approached the entrance I wondered whether this museum represents an entirely different sort of strength, the strength to embrace the unusual.
![Top and Above: The east
façade of the Ningbo
Museum, People’s
Republic of china.
Designed by Amateur
Architecture Studio,
It is located in a nondescript
area next to
two large government
vuildings, a massive
plaza, and a cultural
centre. It will soon be
flanked by ten residential
tower blocks designed
by Ma Gingyun.
Top and Above: The east
façade of the Ningbo
Museum, People’s
Republic of china.
Designed by Amateur
Architecture Studio,
It is located in a nondescript
area next to
two large government
vuildings, a massive
plaza, and a cultural
centre. It will soon be
flanked by ten residential
tower blocks designed
by Ma Gingyun.](/content/dam/domusweb/en/from-the-archive/2012/03/03/ningbo-history-museum/big_375839_4044_DO0902180031.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![The “summit
of the mountain”,
the terrace and the
auditorium. Wang Shu
has interpreted the
idea of the mountain by
widening the range of
entrances and treating
the space inside as if it
were a kind of maze
The “summit
of the mountain”,
the terrace and the
auditorium. Wang Shu
has interpreted the
idea of the mountain by
widening the range of
entrances and treating
the space inside as if it
were a kind of maze](/content/dam/domusweb/en/from-the-archive/2012/03/03/ningbo-history-museum/big_375839_6212_DO0902180011.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
Most of the Ningbo Museum's exterior is composed of debris collected from destruction sites around the region. The pieces were assembled using a technique known as wa pan, a method developed by the region's farmers to cope with the destruction caused by typhoons
![The south facade
of the museum. The
design combines two
building methods:
reinforced concrete,
which was moulded
on the surface using
bamboo canes, and the
<em>wa pan</em> technique (the
re-use of existing materials).
The surfaces of
the walls reveal the
presence of over 20
different types of recycled
tiles and bricks,
which were recovered
when the old villages
were demolished The south facade
of the museum. The
design combines two
building methods:
reinforced concrete,
which was moulded
on the surface using
bamboo canes, and the
<em>wa pan</em> technique (the
re-use of existing materials).
The surfaces of
the walls reveal the
presence of over 20
different types of recycled
tiles and bricks,
which were recovered
when the old villages
were demolished](/content/dam/domusweb/en/from-the-archive/2012/03/03/ningbo-history-museum/big_375839_5445_DO0902180061.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![A series of open-air courtyards have been dug out of the inside of the building. A series of open-air courtyards have been dug out of the inside of the building.](/content/dam/domusweb/en/from-the-archive/2012/03/03/ningbo-history-museum/big_375839_7500_DO0902180051.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![The main
courtyard in the
Ningbo Museum, a
full-height space that
cuts right through the
building and reaches
the roof terrace
The main
courtyard in the
Ningbo Museum, a
full-height space that
cuts right through the
building and reaches
the roof terrace](/content/dam/domusweb/en/from-the-archive/2012/03/03/ningbo-history-museum/big_375839_5635_DO0902180071.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![The Ningbo Museum's main courtyard The Ningbo Museum's main courtyard](/content/dam/domusweb/en/from-the-archive/2012/03/03/ningbo-history-museum/big_375839_3022_DO0902180081.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)
![Wang Shu says that the
design represents an
intersection of “three
valleys crossed by
large stairways – two
on the inside and one
on the outside”. The
internal walls (also
in concrete) were
moulded with bamboo
canes as well. The
use of this unusual
technique, as with
the use of <em>wa pan</em> for
the walls, meant that
the builders had to be
specially trained: they
had lost their own traditional
knowledge.
This unusual regained
skill, however, now
means that they are
much in demand in
their own market
Wang Shu says that the
design represents an
intersection of “three
valleys crossed by
large stairways – two
on the inside and one
on the outside”. The
internal walls (also
in concrete) were
moulded with bamboo
canes as well. The
use of this unusual
technique, as with
the use of <em>wa pan</em> for
the walls, meant that
the builders had to be
specially trained: they
had lost their own traditional
knowledge.
This unusual regained
skill, however, now
means that they are
much in demand in
their own market](/content/dam/domusweb/en/from-the-archive/2012/03/03/ningbo-history-museum/big_375839_3363_DO0902180121.jpg.foto.rmedium.jpg)