Wuxi Meili Museum in China by Atelier Diameter

The museum of archaeology, which stands in the megalopolis Wuxi near Shanghai, is exhibition space and social gathering place in one. At the same time, it differs significantly from its surrounding pseudohistorical commercial buildings.

Not everything in China that is called old and looks old is actually old: the Meili Ancient Town in the eastern part of Wuxi, a city of seven million inhabitants near Shanghai, is a shopping district in the guise of historical residential architecture from the 15th to 19th centuries. However, beneath the ground are the remains of buildings from the 2nd and 1st millennia BCE; these have recently been unearthed in excavations and have led to the construction of a museum of archaeology and history on the south bank of the Bodu River. The plans for the museum were prepared by Atelier Diameter in collaboration with their partner architects from the China Architecture Design & Research Group.

A small, multifaceted building

With 2000 m² of space – half of which is devoted to exhibitions – the museum is relatively small. Its entrance is located on the main square of the district, which is on the side of the building that faces away from the river. From here, the tour leads first through several themed rooms where regional history is staged, and ends in a large exhibition hall where the archaeological finds are displayed on the river side of the museum. In between, visitors pass through a multimedia room with walls of electrochromic glass that darken during film showings and can then be switched back to transparency. The upper level of the museum is home to offices, storage rooms and a café.

Rooftop terrace with river view

The upper level provides access to a partly covered rooftop terrace that overlooks the river. It is open round the clock, even to visitors without admission tickets. Two broad exterior stairways lead up to the terrace from street level. Large skylights in the flat roof not only let daylight into the exhibition hall, but also allow guests on the roof to look down on the archaeological finds.

The roof terrace offers views of the river and into the museum. © Yang Chen

Geologically inspired travertine facades

When they were designing the new building, the architects deliberately decided against any historical references. At most, the building’s horizontal window slits and variegated wall layers can be compared with geological strata. The exterior walls are clad with dark-grey travertine. Various colour gradations and surface treatments, as well as three different stone formats, give the walls a lively texture.