The Porcelain Source Museum, designed by the acclaimed Shanghai-based firm Atelier Deshaus, has officially opened to the public in Deqing County, Zhejiang Province, marking a significant achievement in architectural preservation and contemporary design. The museum occupies the historically rich former site of Longsheng Village, where archaeological remains of primitive porcelain kilns dating from the Shang Dynasty through the Warring States periods testify to China's millennia-old ceramic traditions. Completed in 2025, the 17,206-square-meter complex represents a thoughtful meditation on how architecture can honor deep historical roots while providing modern cultural institutions with compelling spatial experiences.
The site's historical layering presented both opportunity and challenge for the design team, led by Principal Liu Yichun. To the north, ancient kiln ruins remain visible, while the southern edge features a small river spanned by the Wukang Shishe Bridge, originally constructed during the Yuan Dynasty and still standing as a testament to traditional Chinese engineering. Rather than clearing the site completely, Atelier Deshaus preserved, reconstructed, and adaptively incorporated portions of the original village dwellings into the museum's exhibition spaces. These structures now function as thematic galleries and support facilities, allowing the historical fabric to actively participate in the museum's narrative rather than serving as mere backdrop, a approach that has earned praise from heritage conservation experts.
The museum's main building extends longitudinally along the riverbank, employing a rectilinear plan while presenting an organic architectural character that bridges traditional and contemporary expression. A relatively slender column system supports a roof form that carries subtle references to Xieshan and Wudian typologies—classic Chinese roof styles—while verandas unfold with the undulating terrain, creating a hybrid composition rich in semantic multiplicity. The eaves sit at a deliberately low height, even lower than adjacent preserved village dwellings, establishing a respectful scale relationship that prevents the large public building from overwhelming the smaller residential fabric. This sensitivity to context demonstrates how contemporary architecture can dialogue with vernacular forms without mimicking them.
The second portion of the museum adopts a more subdued formal presence, utilizing a landscape-based architectural approach that moderates the relationship between programmatic scale and site scale. Partially embedded into the terrain following topographical variations, this section introduces two distinct courtyards that organize natural daylight, facilitate ventilation, and enrich the spatial sequence. One courtyard reconstructs a traditional two-courtyard dwelling on its original footprint, serving as a thematic exhibition space for local culture and continuing the scale and order of the former village fabric. The other courtyard employs contemporary steel plate construction, establishing a spatial atmosphere that dialogues with the traditional veranda while asserting its modern identity through material choice and detailing.
The curvilinear roof of the main building functions as both an abstract transformation of traditional architectural forms and a continuation of the surrounding agricultural terraced landscape. An open-air theater integrated into the roof structure incorporates distant mountains and nearby water into the building's use and perception, allowing the natural environment to assume an active role within the museum's spatial narrative. This design strategy dissolves the boundary between architecture and landscape, interior and exterior, creating what the architects describe as a "perceptual hesitation toward established architectural categories" that encourages visitors to experience space in a more fluid, contemplative manner.
Photographs by Schran Images reveal the project's sophisticated material palette and masterful handling of light and shadow. The design team, including Chan Hiongai, Wang Zhuohao, Zhang Xiaoqi, and Ji Hongliang, collaborated with YIYU Design Limited on landscape design and AND Office on structural engineering. By positioning the architecture in a state of juxtaposition between traditional imagery and contemporary expression through new scale relationships and curvilinear structural systems, Atelier Deshaus has created a cultural institution that serves not only as a repository for porcelain artifacts but as a thoughtful commentary on the ongoing negotiation between China's architectural heritage and its contemporary aspirations.
