Located in Shunde, Guangdong, He Art Museum (HEM) is a family established, non-profit private art museum designed by Tadao Ando.
The design of HEM’s architecture pursues the philosophy of spatial integration, involving geometrical design elements - square and circle - to create a sense of contrast. Highlighted with the world’s first and only double-helix staircase made with slick concrete and spacious innovative exhibition halls in circular structure, it hopes to utilize the space to create multi-dimensional cultural and artistic experiences for art enthusiasts and the local community.
Tadao Ando challenges the idea of “dynamic geometry” in the design of HEM. Different size of circles expanded to the outside, creating a sense of tension and rhythm. These circles constructed the space of the building through ripple-like expansion: from top to bottom, with the overlapping of four circles.
- Double-helix Staircase -
The museum has a floor height of 5400mm and four floors in total linked by the double-helix staircase. After repeated calculations, the number of steps on each floor is 45, and the width of the steps is reduced by 9mm onwards. The width of the starting step is 3600mm, and 1818mm for the last step. This leads to a different size with different shape in every step throughout the staircase. To make sure the double-helix slick concrete staircase done with perfection, HEM has searched almost every template processing factory in China, only one accepted the job, because the angle of each template for the staircase is different. Metal skeletons and metal templates in the same proportion were made, debugged, modified, shaped in the factory, after which it disassembled and transported to the site for assembling.
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