Earthquake Museum, Wenchuan

About

The earthquake that hit Wenchuan County on 12 May 2008 was the second deadliest ever to be recorded in China, leaving close to 70,000 dead, 375,000 wounded, and losses estimated at 123,000 million dollars. Built in the locality of Qushan (Sichuan province) as a memorial to the victims, the monument and museum complex relies on an easy-to-read symbol: the idea of a fracture dramatically rupturing a placid landscape of green hills, in the same way that seismic activity opens up wounds on the ground. The scenery of sloping fields is the result of giving green roofs to the subterranean buildings that together make up the museum and the monument, which are equipped, moreover, with a highly efficient anti-seismic system based on rubber shock absorbers. For their part, the abstract fissures seen on the ground are actually long walls dug deep into the earth to retain it, and they have been clad with huge sheets of CorTen steel that take on a special patina reminding us of the enthropic nature of natural catastrophes... [+]

Sources

• Arquitectura Viva