Kengo Kuma and Associates has updated progress on the brand new UCCA Clay Museum in Jiangsu province, China, a month after the project was completed in Yixing, the country’s renowned "ceramic capital."

The museum is covered by textured ceramic panels with glazed color gradations that change with the sun and sits on a wooden shell structure whose sculptural volume reflects the form of the region’s Shushan mountains while sheltering usable open space underneath.

The design also uses a dragon kiln as a metaphor while calling to the small ateliers, a canal, and surrounding ceramics factory complex located to either side. Each of the 3,600 ceramic facade panels was handmade by a local artisan and some showcase engravings made by local schoolchildren. Kuma says this communicates a sense of the "warmth of craftsmanship."

Four layers of latticed wood beams support the roof structure, which is indented with carved virtual spears that allow for greater circulation and dynamic spatial interplays on the interior. The project covers approximately 37,000 square feet and includes event spaces, an exhibitions hall, and café.

This new fourth satellite space for the Beijing-based UCCA Center for Contemporary Art supports the more than 1,000 years of cultural traditions based on purple clay crafts in the eastern Yixing region. Back in America, the firm was recently named as one of six finalists for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's expansion competition in Kansas City. 

Two other museum designs—a new extension for the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian (CAM) in Lisbon, Portugal, and the world's first Audio Museum in Seoul—were also completed in 2024.