Project: 'Car Experience' – Automobile Museum
Designed by Francesco Gatti Architects
Location: Nanjing, China
Completion time: 2010
Website: www.3gatti.com
'Car Experience' is the project winner of the international invitation competition for the construction of the Automobile Museum in Nanjing, just announced.The design utilises the automobile as an object of desire, exploration, technological prowess, as an article to display and as the means of navigating the building. Upon arriving at the museum visitors scale the first external ramp of the museum with their own private car, like a SAFARI, they park their car on the roof and visit by foot the internal ramp going down.
The building acts as an urban car exhibitor, with its corners and angles filled with tempting shining exposed automobiles. Here everything is geared to the automobile – the car is the point of reference. There are no stairs to different floors, walls and elevators, but ramps which wind sinuously upwards creating a fluid conception of space, and where the flux of cars can move freely and reach the different levels of the edifice. The principal structure of the building is a spiral ramp with a glass partition dividing the exterior from the interior. In the internal part, reserved for pedestrians, the incline is more gradual, whereas the exterior and steeper side is for the transit of cars.
