TEXAS STATE MUSEUM OF ASIAN CULTURES

Location: Corpus Christi, Texas

Owner: Asian Cultures Museum & Education Center

The Texas State Museum of Asian Cultures design incorporates a renovated two story former union hall into a compound of new construction clustered to create an asian urban village scale.  The architecture avoids association with a particular nationality or culture in favor of an eclectic assemblage; and further avoids literal historical detail, to which neither budget or available craft would do justice.  The design utilizes abstracted references to traditional detail, a sensitivity to surface and texture, and common materials assembled to traditional oriental form and scale.  The dominant spatial device relates to movement and sequential spaces.  From the street, a battered compound wall dominates; the entry hidden form direct street view in a zen rock garden.  From this entry court, an axial view of the exhibit building and the museum’s monumental bronze Buddha is presented, as is a glimpse of the pond garden on to which primary public spaces focus.