New Suzhou art gallery inspired by traditional gardens

The museum is formed of 12 pavilions beneath a continuous, ribbon-like roof, with a design inspired by traditional Suzhou gardens, creating a series of exhibition spaces running through the museum’s pavilions, galleries and public spaces.

The roof is designed to appear as a traditional infinity knot from above and is intertwined through the legs of a newly built Ferris wheel.

Visitors can walk from the city to the museum through sculpture gardens to the lakefront.

MoCa’s inaugural exhibitions include a Picasso exhibition and a large collection of contemporary Chinese art.

Bjarke Ingels, BIG’s founder, said: “With the vast number of visitors ascending the wheel above, the roof surface de facto becomes the true fifth facade of the art complex. By dissolving the museum into a Chinese garden of interconnected galleries, distributed across the site like pavilions in a park, the museum becomes a connection between the city and the lake, rather than an obstacle.

“Not only do I see our design as an homage to its local heritage, a sort of Scandinavian reinterpretation of a unique typology, the Chinese garden, but the result is in many ways a manifestation of the ancient future of Suzhou and a testament to the construction quality and technical sophistication that is becoming the rule rather than the exception in contemporary Chinese architecture.

Catherine Huang, BIG partner, said: “The museum reconciles Western and Eastern spatial traditions through a deliberate duality. From the sky, the museum reads like traditional craftwork: a series of papercut knots framing the gardens below, turning the heritage of Suzhou into artwork. But as one descends and enters the museum, the clarity of the figure-ground dissolves.

“The gardens begin to flow into one another, unfolding as sequences of spaces, views, art, and nature – transforming a composition that appears precise from above into an experience of exploration and discovery on the ground.”