西岸美术馆

West Bund Museum stands at 2600 Longteng Avenue in Xuhui District, on a triangular site where Longteng Avenue meets the bank of the Huangpu River, and is a central public venue of Shanghai's West Bund art corridor. David Chipperfield Architects designed the building; design began in 2013, construction started in 2017 and the museum opened on 8 November 2019 with about 20,000 square metres of floor area, a figure ArchDaily records as 22,000 square metres. Three gallery volumes, each 17 metres high, are arranged in a pin-wheel around a central double-height lobby and can operate independently. Their upper levels hold top-lit galleries; the lower levels contain a multipurpose hall, art studio and education rooms, lit by clerestory windows and partly sunken. The facades are clad in translucent recycled glass that reads as opaline by day and prismatic at night, while a raised public esplanade runs along the river and the roof cantilevers toward the water, creating a terrace and a small café pavilion with river views. At opening, the museum began a five-year exhibition partnership with the Centre Pompidou, organised around visual art, performance, new media and contemporary design and presented as a flagship cultural exchange between France and China. The building suits large touring exhibitions, brand launches, academic forums and riverside receptions, with galleries, bookshop, café and public spaces able to be used separately. It opens Tuesday to Sunday from 10:00 to 17:00, last entry at 16:00; telephone 021-31011011.