Guangdong MuseumGuangzhou , China The city of Guangzhou is growing at an unprecedented rate , particularly in a southern direction toward the Pearl River . The site area of the new Guangdong Museum and Opera House offers a unique planning opportunity to resolve this rapid urban growth where the expanding city meets the Pearl River , and to provide residents and visitors to the city with a new and unprecedented experience of art and culture . We propose two conceptual design metaphors for the planning of the museum site : First , the Mountain with 4 Peaks and second , the Glass Forest . These two new organizational ideas will resolve the intersection of the expanding city , the Culture and Art Square , the Museum site , and the River , offering the citizens of Guangdong province a powerful and compelling sequence of spaces for promenading , exhibition , performance , and landscape in the intermediate zone where the city ends and the river begins . MOUNTAIN WITH 4 PEAKSThe Mountain with 4 Peaks will alter an essentially flat landscape by introducing a new land form or promontory which rises from four points out of the horizontal museum site . The land is to be modified - stretched - as if the earth were elastic , extending vertically from four center points that signify the four new museum gallery towers . As the land form grows , it extends west , connecting with the raised land form of the new Opera House . In a sense , the newly elevated ground separates the city from the river , and creates a raised platform of land from which to view north to the City , south to the River , east to the Museum , or west to the Opera House . Areas surrounding the raised earth will be grass , providing space for informal gathering , large outdoor exhibitions , parades , and public celebrations . This conceptual landform - the Mountain with 4 Peaks - is generated by the 4 primary organizational gallery components in the museum program : Art , History , Nature , and Temporary . These 4 elements will become the 4 Glass Gallery Cubes or towers , each 45 m x 45 m x 45 m , which contain the major exhibition and support spaces for each of the museum departments . Museum visitors walking east on the Long ' Art ' March enclosed by the Glass Forest , arrive at the museum entrance as the Glass Forest dissipates in the outdoor spaces between the 4 Glass Gallery Cubes . A freer , less precisely defined system of pedestrian access is also available to those coming on - foot from other directions , north , south , and east of the site , directly into the space between the cubes , onto the main entry walk , and into the Museum . GLASS FORESTRunning east and west along the top of the new ridge is the Long ' Art ' March , a linear pedestrian path 7 meters wide that connects the Culture and Art Square with the new Museum and the Opera House . This new walk will become the primary pedestrian route to the new museum . Paralleling the ' Art ' March is the new Glass Forest , a dense grouping of transparent hollow glass tubes - Glass Trees - that are aligned precisely on either edge of the pedestrian walk , and positioned more freely as the Glass Trees extend beyond the walk along the hillside . From the base of the raised land , this line of Glass Trees marks the presence of the walk . Both the 4 Peaks and the Glass Forest designate the terminus of the urban development moving south , and suggest an alternate landform and landscape , a new urban space and purpose - east to the Museum or west to the Opera House - a civic space for art and music , education and celebration . Panel Discussion moderated by Eric Owen Moss http : / / www . ericowenmoss . com / index . php ? / content / projects /