MAD completes granite-clad Shenzhen Bay Culture Square museum complex

MAD has completed Shenzhen Bay Culture Square, a mixed-use cultural complex in Shenzhen’s Nanshan District. Completed after eight years of design and construction, the ensemble seeks to combine museum facilities with a publicly accessible landscape. 

Located between the Houhai business district and Shenzhen Bay, the development occupies a 510,000-square-foot site and provides almost 2 million square feet of floor area. The project houses exhibition galleries, public education spaces, a design library, and a multifunctional theater, while seeking to integrate cultural programming with public open space.

Rather than concentrating the program within a single monumental structure, the design team organized the museum as a series of separate volumes that step down in height from the city’s skyline toward the waterfront. The buildings are clad in narrow strips of white granite, while planted ...