The mega structure
The city of Ordos in Inner Mongolia, China is a place that has attracted several accolades recently. Nestled in the sandy Gobi deserts, this city’s looks have taken a dramatic turn with the completion of Ordos Museum by a renowned Chinese Architectural firm MAD. The beautiful polished metal facades of this museum rise all over the new city called Ordos.
The designing of this museum was commissioned in the year 2005 and it took six years to complete this mega structure. This museum is built on the land which was once just a Gobi Desert. It has been created as the foundation stone of a future metropolis and is a connecting link between the rural Ordos and the urban world. Inspired by the Buckminster Fuller’s Manhattan Dome, this mega structure is developed on ecological lines and imitates the sand dunes associated with the Gobi desert that forms the city of Ordos. This recently completed Ordos Art and City Museum aims at bringing together the historic traditions of this city under one roof. Lead by Ma Yansong, this is the first public building by MAD. In the sloping hills of the harsh Gobi desert, this museum offers a platform to locals and tourists to understand the culture of Inner Mongolia and reinvent the traditions in urban context. This place surely highlights the area’s past and future. The entire museum appears to be a part of the landscape which is surrounded by sand dunes, windswept land along with big firmament. The aluminum panel clad façade along with generous spaces, glass skylights and large atrium, makes this museum a mega structure that speaks volumes about the city’s natural and irregular terrain.
What makes it mega?
The city has irregular and rugged landscape, all thanks to the harsh Gobi deserts that envelops the entire city. This is the prime reason that this museum’s development has also been conceived as irregular and therefore the entire complex is built in the form of a landscape rather than strict geometrical designs. This mega structure is wrapped in metal louvers which have been polished to reflect the city’s natural design. At the same time, the outer structure dissolves the planned architecture which separates it from urbanization without compromising on modernity.
The interior of this building has several exhibition halls which display the artifacts from pre-historic and medieval era. The curvilinear walls are a new design that emphasizes on the natural beauty and need for ecological conservation. These halls open at a shared public space that surrounds the entire museum. Roof is glazed to trap light while walls are luminescent for channeling the trapped light. Natural ventilation allows the place to breathe and even with crowds, the place doesn’t gets suffocating. A panoramic or a far view of this building suggests an image of sun over the sands or grasslands. The whole idea of its development and commissioning of several other urban landscapes indicates the dominance of sun as a natural strength or power.
Eco Credentials
This building is like a pearl in the deserts of Gobi that emphasize on the idea of bringing urban facilities into the new and developing city of Ordos. The building is a mega structure that focuses on optimum utilization of natural, renewable sources of energy like sun and wind. This is the reason the building appears to be a sun rising in the grassland, while the large fragments of glass allows sunlight reflection, making the building glow during the day time. The effective natural ventilation system ensures that no one feels suffocated even when the place is badly crowded. All over the building solar panels have been installed. The exterior of this museum has dark copper colored louvers that give the building a sunny glow. Although the metal reflects everything around, yet the louvers have been placed in such a way that the reflections are dissolved. The louvers also allow sunlight to travel through the windows and light the path in interior galleries.
At the same time, the glazed roof with solar panels entraps sun light and energy and channels the energy through the luminescent walls which easily brightens the exhibition halls after sunset. Interior and exterior contrasts ensure smooth channeling of the resources. Surely, this building is a mega structure that speaks volumes about its grandeur and ecological significance. It is a green mega structure owing to its optimum utilization of natural resources. The design is certainly inspiring and futuristic!
