Glossy blue and brown tiles intended to evoke mineral veins cover the exterior of this mining museum in Yixing City, China, completed by Atelier XÜK.
Called Huanglong Mountain Zisha Mineral Source Museum, the 2,435-square-metre building is located on the remains of the Zisha Mine, which operated on Huanglong Mountain from 1972 until 1992.
To enable visitors to directly engage with this heritage site, Shanghai-based Atelier XÜK incorporated the old mine tunnels into the museum, creating a “vortex-shaped” exhibition route that descends underground.
“The design appropriately transforms [the site] based on the principles of minimum intervention, historical restoration, and activation, to make it a reference for the protection and renewal of architectural heritage,” said the studio.
“A vortex-shaped exhibition route from the ground to the earth in the museum connects the three exhibition halls on the ground floor and the underground mine tunnel into one complete space,” it continued.
Above ground, Atelier XÜK designed a cluster of five intersecting blocks, with slim gaps created in between the southern facades to form entry routes.
Each of these blocks has been clad in glazed tiles informed by the colours of the clay and ore that was once extracted from the Zisha Mine, with a variegated finish of blues and browns that changes depending on the position of the sun.
“‘Glazing’ means applying a finishing layer to the surface of pottery to achieve the purpose of beauty, airtightness, anti-penetration, and increase strength,” explained the studio.
“The coloured glaze treatment is used on the facade tiles in order to make the facade present a rich light and shadow reflection effect,” added Atelier XÜK.
“When people approach and touch it with their hands, it will evoke a rich sense of contact with the building.”
In the three exhibition halls, the palette of the exterior has been continued with terracotta-paved floors and brown-plastered walls, illuminated by skylights and windows.
In the former mine, exhibits sit directly against the rough stonework of the tunnel walls, both in the form of projections and weathered steel cabinets.
Surrounding the museum is a landscape of reddish-brown stones and stone seating that mimic the chipped appearance of the mine below.
Atelier XÜK was founded in 2010 by Kenan Liu and Xu Zhang. Previous projects by the studio include the conversion of a disused primary school in Qinyong into a boutique hotel and the extension of a Spanish colonial-style villa in Shanghai.
The photography is by Yiming Yang, Xu Zhang and Shiliang Hu.
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