< img src= "https://www.designboom.com/twitterimages/uploads/2026/03/museum-documentary-films-tanghua-architect-associates-china-designboom-FB.jpg"alt=" "> a complex for the history and
craft of movie theater The Xichang Jianchuan Movie Museum by Shenzhen-based Tanghua Architects stands in Xichang, China as a popular existence within the city’s brand-new high-speed rail district. With its huge concrete structure and folding rooftop, the task becomes part of the extensive Jianchuan museum campus and adds to a cultural complex committed to the history and craft of movie theater.
Set within a large master strategy that will ultimately include seventeen institutions committed to different aspects of movie history, the museum occupies a central position along the school’s primary path. It’s within this larger context that the team established a building devoted to documentary movie theater, a discipline specified by its close relationship with lived experience and observation.
images © MMCM Studio Tanghua Architects is Directed by Documentary Film The group at Tanghua Architects approached the style with the facility that documentary filmmaking carries an unique quality of authenticity. Architecture for such a program might reveal that perceptiveness through product honesty and spatial openness. The building therefore emerges with direct structural expression, surfaces of exposed concrete, and a generous relationship with the surrounding environment of Xichang.
Tanghua Architects arranges the Film Museum as a series of spaces that shift in between enclosed galleries and an expansive open exhibit hall above. The second floor runs as a large shaded platform that allows air and sunlight to travel through the building. Visitors cross this raised space while remaining connected to the atmosphere of the valley in a way that allows them to experience the museum in dialogue with the environment beyond its walls.
the Xichang Jianchuan Movie Museum by Tanghua Architects completes in China A Roofing That Frames the Sky The most specifying element of the Film Museum is its articulated roofing system structure, which Tanghua Architects shapes as a series of folded concrete airplanes. The structure jobs outside in a repeating rhythm which creates broad eaves that cast long bands of shade throughout the terraces and galleries below. From a range, the roof reads as a sculptural shape against the sky, while at closer variety it exposes a structural grid that extends throughout the interior.
This overhead structure introduces a sense of scale to the Film Museum. Enormous beams converge above the open hall, forming a pattern of square coffers that guide light across the concrete surface areas. As the sun moves through the day, shifting patches of brightness cinematically take a trip across the flooring and walls.
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https://static.designboom.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/museum-documentary-films-tanghua-architect-associates-china-designboom-03.jpg”/ > a folded concrete roof extends outside to produce deep shade across the upper exhibition platform Motion Through the Building The ground level entryway leads to enclosed exhibition halls dedicated to the history of film and documentary practice. These galleries provide regulated conditions for archival material and curated installations. From this base, visitors rise through ramps and stairs towards the open platform above.
The shift from confined galleries to the open hall is a dramatic shift. Above, the building becomes a large civic balcony supported by slim columns. Views extend external across the school and towards the mountains, and circular openings cut into the concrete walls to frame these landscapes.
big structural beams form a grid that specifies the rhythm of the interior hall Material and Structure Concrete specifies the design language of the Film Museum. Tanghua Architects leaves the material exposed so that the subtle traces of building remain visible. Small variations in tone and texture expose the procedure of casting and assembly, a technique which reinforces the structure’s emphasis on direct expression.
Alongside the concrete structure, dark brick volumes line areas of the interior perimeter. These brick components introduce depth and rhythm along the open hall while housing smaller spaces and circulation paths. The mix of concrete frame and brick surfaces gives the constructing a balance in between mass and openness.
ground flooring galleries house enclosed exhibition areas dedicated to film history