Major new museum designed by Kengo Kuma opens in China

In activity since 2007, the UCCA Center for Contemporary Art is now China's leading independent contemporary art institution, with several locations throughout the country: the headquarters in Beijing, designed by OMA and recently renovated by Chris van Duijn and Inge Goudsmit, and the Ucca Dune locations in Aranya by OPEN Architecture and Ucca Edge in Shanghai by SO-IL. The fourth outpost is designed by Kengo Kuma & Associates, who have realised the new Ucca Clay Museum in Yixing, Jiangsu province, a city about two hours away from Shanghai and known for its historical tradition in ceramic work. The work, opened in October 2024, is conceived as a striking urban marketing tool with the aim of enhancing the area's rich artisanal heritage that has long been plagued by widespread mass production, bringing it into the spotlight of the contemporary, national and international artistic scene.

The organic building stands out like a massive plastic sculpture in the dense industrial landscape along the Yangtze River Delta. The enveloping, curving floor plan houses, on two floors and a basement, flexible and modular exhibition spaces, a multi-purpose hall, an auditorium, conference rooms, a bookshop, a cafeteria, recreation areas and archives. The punctuated volume, described by the studio as “an inverted shell structure carved by virtual spheres” evokes the profile of the neighbouring Shushan Mountain and is characterised by a shell entirely covered with handmade ceramic panels, in homage to local building know-how. The different textures and colour gradations of the ceramics refer to the expressive variables of fired clay, registering the changing reflection of light throughout the day and giving the building a strong visual impact.

In the interior, the fluid spaces expand across the ground-floor windows towards pools of water covered with tile backdrops that multiply the play of reflections; the articulated structural grid of the wooden roof beams creates a lively dynamism that further expands the perception of the interior space beyond its actual dimensions.