The significance of the Nanjing Museum is hard to overstate. As one of the earliest museums in China, it is also one of only three national-level museums in the entire country; the other two being in Beijing and Taipei.
Therefore, it has quite a story to tell. First of all, though, the Nanjing Museum is one of our city’s attractions where admission is free of charge, although a valid ID is required. And that’s a treat, on account of what lies inside.
For this colossal place will demand at least a full day of your time. Over a floor area of 70,000 square metres of space are more than 430,000 items in the Museum’s permanent collection alone (only the Palace Museum in Beijing has more), among which the Ming and Qing imperial porcelain collection is also one of the world’s largest.
As its predecessor, the Nanjing Museum has the Preparatory Office for the National Central Museum, proposed by educator and first president of the Academia Sinica, Cai Yuanpei, among others, in 1933.
Construction began in 1936, with the original plan was to build three museums for humanities, crafts and nature. Later, construction was suspended due to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War.
From an architectural standpoint, the Nanjing Museum immediately comes across as being remarkably different from other Qing-Dynasty-style palaces. And there is a very simple reason for that; the Museum adopts the Liao-Dynasty style of architectural form.
Most notable is the relatively gentle pitch to the roof, making for eaves which rise slowly and relieve the overhead structure’s heavy feeling. Then there are the simple but strong Dougong under the eaves, protruding to support the flying eaves.
Liao-Dynasty architecture remains the oldest wooden architecture to be found in China. As the 20th Century dawned and the Republic of China was born, so too emerged many archeological examples of Liao-Dynasty structures. For this reason was the design for the Nanjing Museum chosen, with the intent to strictly preserve Liao-style details.
The building’s placement is also extremely relevant, being deliberately quite far from Zhongshan Dong Lu. This forms a square out front, providing for a very wide visual perspective. Grand and imposing, in other words.
It all made for an expensive and time consuming project, and with the War constantly lingering, a completion date for the Museum was hard to set, resulting in it being postponed time and time again. When all was said and done, it had taken more than 15 years to finish the job.
Renamed the Nanjing Museum in 1950, the institution has been under the leadership of Jiangsu Provincial Bureau of Culture since 1954.
