New home for China’s ancient treasures to display many more Palace Museum artefacts
- Construction of north campus of Beijing’s Palace Museum began in December
- Expansion will triple number of displayed artefacts, feature ‘heritage hospital’ to view restoration process
The centrepiece of the project will be the new north campus consisting of 12 exhibition halls totalling 35,000 square metres (376,737 sq ft) of space. Once completed, the museum will be able to display up to 30,000 pieces annually, the museum’s party secretary and vice-chairman, Du Haijiang, told state television broadcaster CCTV on Thursday.
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Fewer than 10,000 of the Forbidden City’s nearly 1.9 million pieces of cultural relics are exhibited each year due to a “lack of space and conditions”, Du said.
The new campus will include a “heritage hospital” where visitors will be able to view the restoration process of various artefacts in a “more open” environment, Du said, adding that the original and new sites will “store different cultural relics according to their own environmental conditions”.
Paintings and calligraphy, for example, which require seasonal care and cannot be displayed during winter, summer and in rainy seasons due to their sensitivity to moisture and temperature changes, will be housed in the new facilities that will be furnished with advanced equipment, he said.