Mandala in Light: Tibetan Medicine Museum, Xining光之坛城·藏药博物馆

Mandala in Light is a Tibetan medicine museum in Xining, on the Qinghai plateau, designed by Atelier Alter Architects for Jinhe Tibetan Medicine. Its core inspiration is the Guben Ganglakang, a rare surviving three-dimensional mandala, whose sacred geometry of cross symmetry, central emphasis and radiating order becomes the spatial blueprint of a contemporary museum. Visitors move from an outer gallery to an inner hall and a central sanctum, read as the mandalas of body, speech and mind: space sensed through movement, culture understood through display, and an innermost realm left to silent contemplation.

The narrative unfolds across the Three Ages Buddhas of past, present and future, tracing the origins, living traditions and healing legacy of Tibetan medicine, with the Medicine Buddha at its heart. Core spaces unfold along the building's long axis. Two layered red volumes, conceived in rammed earth from local soil, rise and taper above a transparent ground level and frame a public centre that opens to the street and entrance square, where performance spaces flank an outdoor event space. Inside, stepped inner walls draw the eye to openings of light above; a long gallery of Mantang scroll paintings is lit by a narrow band of skylight; galleries of medicinal materials and nature invite close observation. Conference rooms, clinic rooms and roof gardens occupy the upper floors.

Conceived as a public-welfare project, the museum preserves an ethnic minority medical heritage while offering a quiet place for physical and mental recuperation. It won the 2026 WAFX Award in the Cultural Identity category and was shortlisted at the World Architecture Festival 2026 in Future Projects – Culture.