Recently, the State Council Press Office held a press conference to introduce the guiding opinions on the reform and development of museums. The press conference mentioned that National Cultural Heritage Administration recently signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Beijing Municipal People’s Government to jointly build Beijing’s “Museum City” to promote the organic integration of different types of museums; Xi ‘an in Shaanxi, Datong in Shanxi, Nanjing in Jiangsu and other places have also opened the curtain of the construction of “Museum City”.
Datong is a thousand-year-old ancient capital with many reputations such as “Imperial Capital of Northern Wei Dynasty”, “Capital of Liao and Jin Dynasties” and “Important Town of Ming and Qing Dynasties”. After years of changes, it has left countless precious historical sites from the power center of nomadic people to a modern livable city. In recent years, in the action of building a “museum city” in Datong, Datong Museum has been exploring a new model of “main museum+sub-museum”, connecting the 2300-year history of Datong in series, presenting it to the public completely, and making the cultural relics hidden in the boudoir of the warehouse “live”.
The reporter learned that Datong Museum, established in 1959, is the most comprehensive museum in the province except Shanxi Museum. However, due to the rich variety and distinctive regional characteristics of more than 70,000 pieces of cultural relics in the museum, the exhibition hall of the main museum of nearly 10,000 square meters can not accommodate so many themes and contents, which makes many exhibits sleep in the warehouse for a long time.
In 2008, the Datong Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government started the “Revival of Famous Cities” project. During this process, Liang Sicheng Memorial Hall and Heping City Memory Hall were officially opened in 2011, telling different Datong stories. Since 2015, according to the cultural characteristics of the city of Datong and the types of collections, Datong Museum has selected nearly 20 themes according to the requirements of the municipal planning department, aiming at filling in the historical period of Datong.
Today, in addition to the main museum of Datong City, the museum has also built nine branches, including Liang Sicheng Memorial Hall, Pingcheng Memory Hall, Kuixing Culture Museum, Mingtang Ruins Museum, Northern Dynasties Art Museum, Liao, Jin and Yuan National Integration Museum, Datong Red Memory Museum, Ancient Bronze Art Museum and Zhang Aitang Former Residence Memorial Hall. Different branches highlight different themes and have their own characteristics, so that visitors can wander among them. Just like watching a series of historical dramas, they are always full of expectations and surprises. Joyce Ma, Zhu Meng