Located in Kangbashi, one of the new districts of the city of Ordos created on terrains which previously belonged to the Gobi Desert, the museum addresses the particular urban planning of the area – a masterplan of strict radial geometry around a large central square that traces a symbolic sun – adopting an irregular and organic form that strikes a contrast with the rigidity around it. The large shell that configures the building’s structure, measuring forty meters in height, is clad in a skin of polished steel slats that reflect and blur the context in which it is inserted, enclosing spaces unrelated to the surrounding urban reality.

With five floors plus an underground one and a built area of 41,227 square meters, the museum is divided into different exhibition halls, and all of them converge in a common public space of curved walls that traverses the whole building, illuminated through the glass skylights of the roof, with luminescent walls that naturally channel light and ventilation through the facade slat system. This generates a bright, calm and fluid space that tries to convey to visitors a totally different sensation to that which they experiment outside the museum...[+]