Drive-In Automobile Museum in Nanjing

3gatti have become the project winner of the international competition for the construction of the Automobile Museum in Nanjing.

The Automobile Museum has a building design that is dedicated to the automobile, where the automobile also is the vehicle that visits the space. You visit the first external ramp of the museum with your own private car, like a SAFARI, you park your car on the roof and visit by foot the internal ramp going down. The building could seem to appear as a urban car showroom, with its corners and angles filled with tempting, shining exposed automobiles.

AUTOMOBILE MUSEUM CREDITS:

Programme:
Automobile and car components exhibition, educational installations, design centre, office, workshops laboratories, technical laboratories, conference rooms, space for special events, restaurants, retail, sales office.

PROCEDURE:
International invitation competition first price

Architecture firm: 3GATTI
Chief architect: Francesco Gatti
Project manager: Summer Nie
Collaborators: Nicole Ni, Muavii Sun, Chen qiuju, Jimmy Chu, Luca Spreafico, Damiano Fossati, Kelly Han.

Client:
Jiangsu Head Investment group CO.,LTD

Location:
Jiangning area, high-tech zone, Nanjing, China.

Total floor area: 15000 m²

Design period: May 2008

Intended construction period: 2009

Materials: Steel structure, resin coating, glass partitions.

The architect describes the museum as a “movie sequence in which the principal actor is the car”, a building where two car-related panorama go hand in hand: on the one hand the architect’s conscious attention to motorway aestheticism and urban scale – the structures and materials remind one of a viaduct - and on the other, his transportation into the museum of the ergonomics of the interior of a car. The furbishing and details within the edifice are related to and on a scale with its specific functions and it is not difficult for the visitor to imagine that he is in a car on a highway, rather than in a museum.
- Giampiero Sanguigni