Ningbo Museum: Creative Architecture & Creative Exhibition

Posted: May 5th, 2009 | Author: Fu Hanqing | Filed under: creative industries | Tags: Ningbo museum | 1 Comment »

Ningbo museum is located in the south east district of Ningbo city, with an area of about 4 hectares, a floor area of about 30000 square meters and 16,000 collections. It is one of the eight cultural projects which Ningbo government majorly constructed. Drawing upon its two major advantages, creative architecture and creative exhibitions, Ningbo museum came to the fore in China which has all kinds of museums.

Ningbo Museum, 1000 Shounan Road (M), Yinzhou, Ningbo, China

Creative Architecture

The style of architecture of Ningbo Museum is called ‘new interpretative attitude’. The idea of this style do not venerate the unchanging design patterns but stress to use local materials and methods in design. Ningbo museum is laden with a lot of cultural information of Ningbo. First of all, Ningbo museum is architecture of ‘half mountains and half houses’. The building has a list to the south which symbolized the local landform of mountain. An expanse of water traverses the major entrance, rounding the whole building. It indicates the development of Ningbo from ferry to estuary and thence to port.

Expanse of Water & ‘half mountains and half houses’

Secondly, the main attraction of this museum is the ‘tile wall’ and special concrete wall. Millions of old tiles, involving blue bricks, keel bricks and tiles, since Ming and Qing dynasties were used to build up this museum. The meaning of this tile wall is equal to the idea of ‘collecting history’. Besides, the special concrete wall is made up by displaying the grain of bamboo on the wall. Bamboo can show the typical characters of the culture of south Yangzi River and impose the historical information. With this style of architecture, Ningbo museum itself becomes an exhibit.

Titles Wall & Bamboo Concrete Wall

Creative Exhibitions

There five major exhibition halls to fully display the history and culture of Ningbo. The first one is the display of Ningbo history. Four specialties should be pointed out. Firstly, the structure of showing the history bases on the ecological construction which considered the historical development as the Y-axis and the turning points as the X-axis. Secondly, Ningbo museum uses the historical materials to support the display and cultural relics to provide the display. Thirdly, new technologies are used in exhibitions to deepen the understanding and feeling of visitors. Last, the geographic features of Ningbo gave prominence to the theme of ‘water’.

Ecological Construction & Historical Materials

Multimedia & the Theme of Water

The second exhibition hall is bamboo carvings. This exhibition hall displays traditional culture from both form and content. From the perspective of form, the Chinese traditional method of ‘borrow scenery’ and traditional exhibition shelves is applied in display to heighten visual effects. From the perspective of content, these collections are ‘the most important bamboo carving collection extant in China and is definitely ranked the top level of its kind whether judged by quality and quantity’ ( Shixiang & Jiajin n.d.)

‘Borrow Scenery’ and Traditional Exhibition Shelve

The third exhibition hall is the display of Ningbo customs consisted of Ningbo old-established brands, Ningbo wedding customs, Ningbo houses, Ningbo calendar, Ningbo craftsmanship and Ningbo opera and dialect. All these customs were the hallmark in Ningbo history and culture.

Ningbo Customs.

The remaining two exhibition halls are respectively special exhibition of royal jewel and art works donated by Shao keeping. Special exhibitions always changed with the plans of display.

Princes Gold & Silver Works

With these creative elements, Ningbo museum has become  a particular cultural palace where people understand history and learn more about the world.

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