Suzhou Museum West Wing

The Suzhou Museum West Wing, designed by gmp von Gerkan, Marg and Partners, officially opened on September 29, 2021. It is the landmark museum successor to the original Suzhou Museum designed by Ieoh Ming Pei fifteen years earlier. The West Wing echoes the Suzhou Museum in the east of the city and serves as an important carrier of Suzhou's urban culture and a distinguished cultural landmark in the Yangtze River Delta. gmp won the international design competition for the West Wing in September 2017 and collaborated with the Zhongheng Design Group on subsequent design development. Construction began in March 2018, topped out in August 2020, and after four years of intensive design and construction, the museum opened before National Day 2021. The West Wing is located on Shishan Cultural Plaza in Suzhou's High-tech Zone, covering 37,600 square meters of land with a total building area of 48,300 square meters and exhibition space of 13,400 square meters. The project is positioned as a larger, more multifunctional modern museum. The new museum will not only host local history exhibitions and Suzhou craft exhibitions but also feature an international cooperation hall with touring exhibitions from the British Museum and a digital experience hall for the 5G era. In addition, the West Wing includes an experience hall for youth, strengthening public education as an important supplement to school and social education. The West Wing is developed in complementary, offset coordination with the original Suzhou Museum, significantly expanding its functional scope.