Carved into a sand dune along a quiet beach in the port city of Qinhuangdao, the new Ullens Center for Contemporary Art Dune Art Museum debuted its first art exhibition last month, after three years of construction.

Aranya commissioned Beijing-based OPEN Architecture to design the museum, which is operated by the UCCA. The architects gave the museum a pared down aesthetic that features organic forms and cave-like spaces. The 930 square-meter museum contains 10 galleries and a cafe. 

“Its interconnected, organically shaped spaces echo those of caves—the earliest form of human inhabitance, whose walls were once home to some of man’s first works of art,” OPEN Architecture explains.

The building features multiple openings of different sizes and orientations to provide natural lighting into the space as well as offer views of the changing sky and sea throughout the day. Local workers in Qinhuangdao — some of whom were former shipbuilders — hand-crafted the building's concrete shell, which was made from small linear strips of wood and other materials. A sand-covered roof reduces the building's summer heat load, and a low-energy, zero-emission ground source heat pump system replaces traditional air conditioning. 

In the near future, a long pathway will be built opposite of the museum and extend into the ocean. During low tide, the pathway will allow visitors to walk to the upcoming Sea Art Museum, which will appear like a solitary rock emerging from the ocean. Once built, the Sea Art Museum and Dune Art Museum will form a “Dialogue by the Sea”.