木木美术馆(隆福寺)

M WOODS Longfusi, also known as the M WOODS Art Community, occupies Building 15 at No. 38 Qianliang Hutong, off No. 95 Longfusi Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing, close to Jingshan, Beihai, the National Art Museum of China and the Capital Theatre. The site was formerly the canteen of the Longfusi staff. Between January and August 2019 it was converted by B.L.U.E. Architecture Studio, led by Shuhei Aoyama, into a four-storey art building with 2,070 square metres above ground and 750 square metres below. The facade is made of 0.3-millimetre galvanised steel sheets folded by hand into five different crease patterns, a low-cost response to the hutong grain. The programme is divided into exhibition space, a roof terrace, a ground-floor cafe and shop, and a basement live house. Gallery ceiling heights range from 2.2 to 7 metres. The basement keeps the rough concrete and narrow corridors of the original civil-defence shelter, where seven interconnected rooms form a maze; visitors then climb to the ground, second and third floors as space, light and views of the old neighbourhood gradually open up. The museum opened in August 2019 with a David Hockney retrospective organised with Tate, and continues to stage exhibitions, performances and public programmes as a cultural anchor of the Longfusi regeneration.