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Centre Pompidou Shanghai to open next month in Chipperfield-designed West Bund Art Museum

2019-10-03T13:43:00-04:00

The Centre Pompidou’s long-awaited offshoot branch in Shanghai will open on 8 November [...]. Exhibitions drawn from the holdings of the Beaubourg Gallery will be shown in the new outpost, called Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum, based in a wing of the 25,000 sq. m West Bund Art Museum designed by the UK architect David Chipperfield.

Designs by David Chipperfield Architects for Shanghai's new West Bund Art Museum, which will house the Centre Pompidou satellite space, were first revealed in 2017.

The opening is scheduled for November 8, The Art Newspaper reports.

David Chipperfield: West Bund Art Museum and 'funny-shaped architecture' in China

2019-03-26T13:27:00-04:00

In an interview in his Berlin offices with The Art Newspaper, Chipperfield spoke about the frustratingly free brief for the West Bund Art Museum, China’s unstoppable urban development and the ethical questions that arise for architects working in countries with authoritarian regimes.

When asked about China's slowing economic growth and increasing authoritarianism, Chipperfield answers: "I would say the narrative about the diminishing expansion of the economy is offset by the slightly more sophisticated environment that is evolving. The Chinese are getting better at building. Clients there are understanding better how to put projects together, being a bit more careful about what they build and increasingly sceptical about doing 'funny-shaped architecture'."

West Bund Art Museum, model photo. Image: David Chipperfield Architects

David Chipperfield's stately design for the Shanghai Centre Pompidou revealed

2017-08-08T14:42:00-04:00

Stately, elegant, reflective: these adjectives have largely described the work of British architect David Chipperfield, whose structures tend to invite contemplation and pause before hot take Instagramming. His selection as the architect of the West Bund Art Museum in the new cultural center created jointly by the Centre Pompidou and Shanghai's West Bund Group is therefore not surprising, especially in light of China's recent dictate to steer away from "weird" architecture.

Image: David Chipperfield Architects

The renderings for the proposed 25,000 square meter structure display Chipperfield's signature moves: meticulously calibrated volumes stack atop and adjacent to one another near a reflective body of water. The renderings steer away from bold colors, favoring muted pastels. The interior renderings also convey a serene setting: an ample entrance hall is not flooded with visitors, but rather hosts only a receptionist and a single guest, effectively conveying the notion of unharrie...