Uploaded on 2015-04-22 by MarcusCap

[1]: https://edxuploads.s3.amazonaws.com/14296918565427698.jpg This is a photo of S. Holl's Sifang Museum in Nanjing, China, that I took in 2012. It shows the ambivalence of the relationship between locally-available, "traditional" building materials, and globalized ones. The top part of the museum is a dramatically cantilevered structure, statically achieved by means of a three-dimensional steel truss, supported on only three spots. This construction fully displays the internationalization of building components such as steel profiles, glass and plastic panels used for the cladding. Such materials are systematically used with relatively minimum variations across the globe, independently of location and context (China in this case). The bottom part of the museum, resting on the ground, is made of reinforced concrete, a globalized building material, but here slightly adjusted to the specific location, i.e. using a bamboo-covered formwork in order to achieve a particular ribbed surface. Bamboo, in fact, is a most-cherished autochthonous plant. This is, however, a purely aesthetical move, even if a beautiful one, and does not contribute at all to the building's sustainability.