In 2019, Hangzhou-based One Take Architects completed the Mandala Pop-up Digital Art Museum, which was a temporary structure showcasing an immersive multi-media exhibition inspired by the Himalayan landscape and arts and culture. The architects envisioned the pop-up museum as a utopian, isolated garden in the heart of bustling Beijing.

Featuring facade lines inspired by the Tibetan Himalayan mountain Namcha Barwa, the museum was designed like a set of blocks that can be split and reorganized into a “dKyil-‘khor”, an inner palace in Chinese Buddhism and which translates into “mandala” in English. 

Concealed from the outside, the building measured over 50 meters long, was less than 5 meters tall, and had a width of less than 9 meters. As visitors move through the art museum, they could chart their own path to create their own experience, encountering immersive digital art, changing lights, reflective mirrors, scattered stones, Galsang flowers from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and more.

“The building’s six golden corner blocks can be nested into a complete cube with structures similar to mortise and tenon joints. Some steps on the external layout are deliberately adjusted to different heights for people to lean back, sit, or climb. Though they cease to provide a reference point of the building's scale, they make it more interesting and create a sharp contrast to the serious and dull urban space.,” the architects describe.

More photos and drawings in the gallery below.

Details:
Project name: Mandalas Pop-up Digital Art Museum
Architecture Firm: One Take Architects
Lead Architect:  Li Hao
Curator/Art Team: SAMAS
Project location: Beijing, China
Completion Year: 2019
Gross Built Area (square meters):  240m2