Twenty noted architects have gathered in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, to help design a cluster of private museums on modern Chinese history.
Fan Jianchuan, a private collector, is building the museums which will be the country's biggest on completion next year.
Among the architects involved are academics from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, professors from Peking University, Tsinghua University and Nanjing University.
Also in the group is Li Xinggang, chief designer of the 2008 Olympic sites in Beijing.
Fan's project, in Anren Town of Dayi County, will include eight museums commemorating different periods of the Chinese revolution.
Twelve others will deal with the 10-year "cultural revolution," initiated by the late leader Mao Zedong in 1966.
Fan's museums would epitomize China's history throughout the past century, said Prof Zhang Yonghe of Peking University.
Fan said he would display more than 200,000 historic photos, posters, stamps, chinaware, letters, uniforms, badges and other antiques from the Mao era.
The museums would also house his collection of more than 10,000 paintings, manuscripts and other antiques from wars in China's modern history, before the People's Republic was founded in 1949.
One of the museums will feature more than 100 pieces of classical furniture.
Fan's collection of more than 300 dainty pencil vases, made of porcelain, bamboo, marble, white jade, ivory and cloisonne, will also be exhibited.
Fan has spent 30 million yuan (US$3.6 million) over the past 20 years collecting the antiques. His museums, covering 33 hectares, will cost another 100 million yuan.
Fan said he wanted to revive China's modern history.
Fan, 47, had been a soldier, a teacher and vice mayor of his hometown Yibin City for two years before he stunned the public in 1993 by resigning to take up junior positions at companies in Chengdu.
A year later, he set up the Chengdu-based Jianchuan Group, which is involved in real estate, hotels and cultural projects.
(Xinhua News Agency February 19, 2004)
