An underground exhibition hall will be built in the Forbidden City, the royal palace for the Ming and Qing dynasties, to display over million pieces of treasures, as known from the Palace Museum.

Most visitors have believed for long that the brilliant part of the Forbidden City is the ancient palace complex such as the "Three Grand Palaces" and the "Six Palaces of the East and the West", but those million pieces of historical relics have been left unnoticed. These treasures, not only include articles for the daily use of royal families, but also cover tributes contributed by officials at home and gifts from alien lands. All these treasures are now lying in the underground storage, with only a minute part exhibited in halls by the sides of the "Three Grand Palaces". What's more, they are viewed and admired by only hundreds of visitors per day even in busy seasons.

This is mainly a result of poor exhibition conditions here, expert from the Palace Museum says. Some visitors say the light and layout here are not favorable for appreciating relics carefully. And others point out that the way of exhibition is too rigid with articles on display unchanged for a long time. For these the museum working staff say they are unable to change the situation since the exhibition is limited by narrow room and many regulations on protection of ancient architecture.

The best way to solve the problem is to build modern exhibition halls, experts point out after discussions. With the kicking off of a series of maintenance projects of the Forbidden City, construction of a new exhibition hall is also put onto the agenda. Since the underground storage has been appreciated by museum expertise, the new exhibition hall probably would also be built underground to cover an area of nearly 30,000 square meters. The large number of cultural relics will be displayed in a way as does the Louvre in France, that is, stored on display at the same time. Now the detailed designing plan is under discussion.

( February 4, 2002)