Completed last spring at the northeast corner of Tiananmen Square, the world's biggest museum stands up to the enormity of Beijing's central public space. But the new National Museum of China also points in not so subtle ways to the growing pains of a nation that's striving to become a cultural, as well as economic, powerhouse.
To create the museum, the German firm Architekten von Gerkan, Marg und Partner (GMP) performed a gut renovation of an earlier, historically significant building. Facing the Great Hall of the People across Tiananmen Square, the original Sino-Socialist structure was erected in 1959 as one of Mao's 'Ten Great Buildings,' commemorating the tenth anniversary of the People's Republic. It was designed by the late Zhang Kaiji (father of well-known architect and MIT professor Yung Ho Chang), and previously housed two institutions: the Museum of Chinese History and the Museum of the Chinese Revolution.
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