far workshop converts industrial warehouse into art gallery in shanghai

doozy access art gallery by far workshop

next to longwu road in shanghai, china, interdisciplinary design practice far workshop has transformed an industrial warehouse into an art gallery. the design team has inserted three alien spatial objects to revive a typical gable roof structure that used to be a glass production factory with two massive concrete beam rows sitting along with the building internally. black angular volumes are integrated into the white walls creating a visual juxtaposition, interrupting the seamless surface.all images ©songkai liu unless stated otherwise 

a fragmented facade 

similar to most of the factories pursuing spatial efficiency and economy, the facade of the building reflects its internal rhythm by repeating window frames in each bay. in this project, the shanghai-based studio attempted to disturb such rhythm by weaving completely different spatial language into it and making the facade fragmentally, incompletely, and bizarrely.

an extraordinary art performance

three spatial objects (snout lens, materialized perspective paths, off-axis stacked volume) are embedded into the existing facade. the design team deliberately made the language of these objects inconsistent but spatially connected in narrative with the internal stage that acts as the exhibition hall and ‘black curtain’. during the construction, art intuition martin goya business conducted an experimental art practice by painting graffiti on the entire internal incomplete surface, including walls, flooring, columns. after the exhibition, all graffiti was washed out completely, and all surfaces were painted back to white.

sharp black volumes interrupt the seamless facade

geometrical objects are intertwined on the facade

acting as the ‘black curtain’

detail of the integrated objects

©yaonan pan

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the art show of martin goya business ©mangyuan wang

project info:

name: doozy access art gallery shanghai
architects: far workshop

lead architect: mangyuan wang

location: shanghai

client: doozy access gallery

total area: 500 sqm

construction period: 2019-2020

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: christina petridou | designboom