Riverside Museum

Zaha Hadid’s clever design for a museum of transportation

The entrance facade of Riverside Museum. Photo by author on May 9, 2012.

Initially, I didn’t get the intention of Zaha Hadid for the design of the Riverside Museum, Glasgow’s museum of transportation. If it’s seen from the sky, it has the unique shape that could be beautiful to some. But that’s not how we see the building. Viewed from the ground level, it looks a flat factory with an irregularly zigzagged roof, not particularly eye-pleasing.

Once entering the museum (for free of charge, which is the beauty of many museums in UK) and walking around the exhibition space, however, I start appreciating the shape of the building.

The interior of Riverside Museum. Photo by author on May 9, 2012.

The museum is for exhibiting transportation equipments such as cars, ships, trains, and bicycles, a kind of museum that kids love. The floor is rather cluttered with big objects, which is inevitable for a museum of transportation since transportation equipments need to be bigger than human beings. Kids whose height is much lower than these equipments can easily get lost in this kind of place.

However, Hadid’s design won’t let you lose the sense of direction because of the shape of the ceiling.

The ceiling of Riverside Museum. Photo by author on May 9, 2012.

The zigzagged ceiling is colored with lime green (in transportation, this is the color for going ahead), and the white fluorescent beams follow the sinuous patterns of the roof, reflecting the z-shaped exhibition route of the gallery.

Floor plan of Riverside Museum. Photo by author on May 9, 2012.

Looking up thus lets you easily know how the gallery space is extended beyond what you see, even when you tend to forget where you came from by being surrounded by many large objects.

The interior of Riverside Museum. It’s clear from the ceiling’s shape that there will be more exhibition space to the right at the rear. Photo by author on May 9, 2012.

Then why this zigzagged roof for a transportation museum? The cue is found in a display of an ancient wooden boat, the most primitive form of long-distance transportation, placed on the zigzagged metal board just like the roof of this museum. Yes, the motif of the museum design is a wave of water that allows human beings to travel to distant places in ancient time.

The exterior of Riverside Museum, viewed from a distance. Photo by author on May 9, 2012.

When I realize all these, I take my hat off to one of the most important architects of the 21st century. Architecture is not any more about creating a splashy facade as was often the case in the 20th century. The exterior needs to be integral to the interior design that is appropriate for the purpose of the building, even if the main users of the building are children.

Zaha Hadid is a famous architect. But people only talk about the exterior of her architecture. Her interior design is much underrated…

NOTE: This article is a revised version of the one originally written in May 9, 2012 (the text content is the same; more images are added).