Neri&Hu have completed an extension to the Qujiang Museum of Fine Arts in Xi’an’s Datang Everbright City. Located at the East Entry of the museum, the new architectural icon is inspired by the idea of a glowing lantern. Sitting on a base finished with cast-in-place concrete, the building is composed of four parts—a partially sunken base, a sculptural walk, the elevated podium platform and, lastly, the Beacon.

Capping the new building is the Beacon, which houses a lounge on the second floor. The elevation is composed of striking diamond-shaped red travertine masonry, arranged at intervals to allow light to filter through. On the northwest end of the existing museum building, a passage leads directly to the second-floor outdoor terrace, conceived as a hollowed-out bowl-shaped amphitheatre.

The terrace acts as a grand extension to the entertainment programs of the lounge. This space acts as a forum that is open to the public for various activities, while also serving as a platform for private performances and catwalks.

Below the beacon, you can find the first floor and connecting sunken base, a large public space with escalators that lead to the underground museum. The escalators are concealed within a sculptural form, featuring spaces of sectional play and a triple-story light well at its base for a heightened sense of drama and intrigue.

Hovering just above the sunken base, is the Platform, a construction-like grid of stone columns and glass curtain walls supporting a floating roof house of retail spaces. This retail level is intentionally expressed as a curtain wall to highlight the separation between the carved language of the base, and the circular sculpted massing of the “lantern” above.

The new extension not only satisfies the museum’s newly expanded cultural and commercial functions but also serves as a source of illumination for the surrounding urban fabric.

[Images courtesy of Neri&Hu. Photography by Zhu Runzi & Studio Fang.]