Museum Development in China
Understanding the Building Boom
This book seeks to explore the motivations behind the rapid development of museums in China.
It also aims to answer the questions such as “How is the public responding?” “Who pays for these museums and how?” “How has China’s rapid urbanization affected this trend?”
“How do Chinese museums balance education, scientific research, social cohesion, cultural diplomacy, and tourism both internal and external?”
The four sections of this book build our knowledge of the roles of China’s museums through social and political changes, the systems of governance, the complex relationships between private and public sectors and many levels of government.
- Section One places the current building boom in context.
- Section Two addresses how China’s rapid urbanization has fueled the museum building boom, framed it, formed it and in some cases financed it.
- Section Three analyzes how Chinese exhibitions are tools for cultural diplomacy and key elements of soft power.
- The seven case studies in Section Four provide perspectives on the diversity of innovative approaches in the sector.
This book is an international collaboration which aims to discover how much East and West can learn from each other about museum roles, our publics, how we preserve what we preserve and future sustainability—even as we marvel at the amazing accomplishments of China’s museum building boom.
About The Authors
Gail Lord is one of the world’s foremost museum, gallery, and cultural planners. President & Co-founder of Lord Cultural Resources, her clients include the Nanjing Museum, Beijing Association of Science and Technology, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the Louvre, Tate Modern, and the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, just to name a few. She is an art critic, feature writer, frequent commentator, public speaker, and the co-author of several books including Cities, Museums, and Soft Power and Manual of Strategic Planning for Cultural Organizations. Gail is a Member of the Order of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in the French Ministry of Culture. In 2016, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters, by McMaster University.
Guan Qiang is currently Deputy Administrator of the National Cultural Heritage Administration of China, in charge of Chinese Museums Association and ICOM China. He has been working in the field of archaeological research, exhibition curating, cultural heritage protection and museum management over the past 30 years and including extensive experience at China’s renowned Palace Museum.
An Laishun holds Ph.D. in Chinese history and Masters in museology. He is the Vice President of the International Council of Museums, Vice President and Secretary General of the Chinese Museums Association. For 34 years, Dr. An has served the museum sector in various positions at the national, regional and international levels. Working closely with colleagues around the world, he has concentrated his efforts on increasing regional and international cooperation between museums by contributing to the success of a number of programs and projects, and on internationalizing Chinese museums.
Javier Jimenez is a museum and cultural planner with project experience in more than 20 countries. Since joining Lord Cultural Resources in 2008, Javier has been involved in consulting projects for renowned institutions including the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, the King Abdulaziz Center in Saudi Arabia, the Ayala Museum, the Nanjing Museum, and the V&A Museum in London. Javier collaborates regularly with the academic sector. He is an invited professor at the Masters of Cultural Diplomacy from the Universittá Catolica di Roma and has delivered speeches and training sessions for the Chinese Museum Association, ICOM, CAMOC, and UNESCO.