New ‘Palace Museum’ for modern cultural relics to be built in Beijing

On Jan.22, 2018, the Palace Museum (Forbidden City) and the People's Government of Dongcheng District signed a “Strategy and Cooperation Agreement” that aims to build a new ‘Palace Museum’. The new museum is temporarily named as Museum of Contemporary and Modern Cultural Relics. People who visit the museum have chance to see treasured cultural relics physically and digitally displayed out of the Forbidden City.

The Forbidden City is one of the top five museums in the world. It is the largest wooden structure, the most complete palace complex in the world till now. Shan Jixiang, the dean of the Palace Museum, said that the Palace Museum houses 1,860,000 cultural relics, among which 93.2% are precious ones that attract 15,000,000 visits per year. But the biggest problem now is lack of enough room to display these treasures. The displayed relics every year only accounted for 1%. Dongcheng District owns rich historical and cultural recourses, so the cooperation will vastly improve cultural development and construction in the Palace Museum.

This cooperation project means more than exhibition of historical relics. It brings the energy of culture and makes it a part of people’s life, Shan added.

The Forbidden City is establishing the world-class museum. The key point is serving audiences on different levels and making them feel that culture is around them. The new museum is built as an environmental, zero-emissions and responsible modern museum. It will be the best place for collection and exhibition.