Five aviation fuel containers on the former Longhua airport in Shanghai have been transformed into art and culture park Tank Shanghai, by local studio Open Architecture.
Open Architecture has created 60,000 square metres of gallery space on the former industrial site, for Chinese collector Qiao Zhibing.

Tank Shanghai sits atop a landscaped "super-surface" ? a newly constructed ground level that provides undulating green spaces and squares above, and seamlessly connects each tank together below.

"This project is a story about how industrial relics are reincarnated through art in a new era of city development," said the studio, which is led by architects Li Hu and Huang Wenjing.
"The Tanks are transformed from containers of oil into containers of art and life."
Two of the tanks are now art galleries ? one is finished like a traditional white cube, while the other has its original interior surfaces left exposed. The other three are multi-functional exhibition, leisure and activity spaces.
"Each of these transformations, which thoughtfully preserve and in some cases retain largely untouched the original features of the tanks, had to overcome significant design and construction challenges posed by the constraints of working with the existing structure of each tank," explained the architects.

Standing as distinct forms in the landscape, below ground the tanks appear as large atria, surrounded by sweeping staircases leading up from th...