Tianjin Museum

To our surprise, the only information that Tianjin City provided in the design competition guideline was a sentence: “We seek an architecture that embodies the prestige of Tianjin City, China.” Essential information such as the scale, construction budget, storage, and museum operation was nowhere to be found. Even the boundaries of the site were unclear. Bewildered, we visited the site, and as we looked up the smog-filled sky, we saw a bird resembling a swan. The afterimage of the bird led us to develop a proposal named “SWANIUM,” and granted us the first prize. One of the jurors’ comments stated that it was “breathtakingly beautiful.”