Long Museum West Bund

The Long Museum West Bund (龙美术馆西岸馆, Lóng Měishùguǎn Xī’àn Guǎn) is a private art museum on the Huangpu riverfront in Xuhui, at 3398 Longteng Avenue. It is worth a visit for the building as much as the collection: the architects kept a rusting industrial structure from the site’s coal-wharf days and built the museum around it.

Liu Yiqian and his wife Wang Wei founded the Long Museum. According to English Wikipedia, the West Bund site is their second museum, after the Pudong site opened on 18 December 2012. This one opened in March 2014, and was then described as China’s largest private museum. Sources differ by a day on the date: a press report dated 28 March 2014 says it opened that day, English Wikipedia agrees, and Chinese Wikipedia gives 29 March.

The land became a coal transportation wharf in the 1950s and most recently held an underground car park. The car park’s structural grid, at 8.4-metre intervals, was the biggest constraint on the design, according to Dezeen. The architect was Liu Yichun (柳亦春) of Atelier Deshaus (大舍建筑). Rather than demolish the wharf’s coal-hopper unloading bridge, which is about 110 metres long, 10 metres wide and 8 metres high, Atelier Deshaus made it the centre of the project. It frames the entrance and contains a temporary exhibition space.

The main building repeats a single element that the architects call the “vault umbrella” (伞拱): a concrete column that curves outward at the top, so each looks like two separated halves of an arch. There are dozens of them, set on the existing grid. Reports of the museum’s size vary. A 2014 press report gives 33,000 square metres with 16,000 of exhibition space, while another source gives 30,000 in total.

At opening, the two upper floors showed contemporary art and the basement held ancient Chinese art and works from the Republic era. The collection includes Republic-era oil paintings, with artists from Xu Beihong (徐悲鸿) and Liu Haisu (刘海粟) to Wu Guanzhong (吴冠中), and calligraphy and painting from the Song to Ming dynasties. Exhibitions change, so check what is on before you go.

For practical details, English Wikipedia lists Middle Longhua Road station on Line 7 as the nearest metro access. Hours differ between listings: one gives Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00 with last entry at 17:00, another longer hours on Friday and Saturday. Chinese Wikipedia says entry is free on the first Tuesday of each month, apart from holidays and special exhibitions. None of these is the museum’s own announcement, so confirm hours and tickets before you travel.