A critical analysis of the Museum of Astronomy Shanghai

Text: Kristóf Mánya

This paper deals with the analysis of the Shanghai Astrology Museum viewing it as a cultural product. The museum is a reflection on the relationship between humans and their universe. In his description of the museum, chief designer Thomas Wong speaks about the cultural nature of architecture: „By relating the new museum to both its scientific purpose and the celestial references of historical buildings, the exhibits and architectural formations convey more than scientific content: they shed light on what it means to be human in a vast and largely unknown universe.” China currently has more than three thousand skyscrapers, another sign of the grotesque fascination with the sky. The place of touching the sky was the end point of an eschatologically composed space, a centre that emerges from the urban fabric, both geometrically and sacrally. Now, however, it is just a continuation of a formless expansion. The paper examines the relationship between the museum and the urban fabric, its formal appearance and the realisation of the architectural programme, which the designer conceived in the architectural representation of the astrophysical laws of the universe.