Archaeology Discovery Centre,
Daming Palace, Xian, China
The Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) was a golden age for China. During this period, it became the most powerful and prosperous country in the world as commerce, culture and military might flourished..
Daming Palace in Xian was a fitting monument to this prosperity. It was the major residence of emperors and the most significant palace complex in the Chang’an imperial city. The grandest of all the buildings was Hanuyan Hall where important guests of the emperor were welcomed. But all that remains of this World Heritage site today are the rammed earth foundations, covered in concrete to protect them, giving no sense of history or wonder.
Imagemakers was appointed to design and implement a £4.2 million Archaeology Discovery Centre to tell the story of the excavation of the Daming Palace site and it’s cultural importance in the region.
Designing an exhibition space for the study and understanding of archaeological practice is unique in China. Visitors are taken through key archaeological processes – from research and surveying to excavation and preservation techniques. Central to the experience is the chance to dig for remains.
Through a mix of state-of the-art technology and bespoke ‘hands-on’ displays, visitors learn why archaeology is important and how fragments of information help reconstruct the past.
Using state-of-the-art gesture technology, specialised touch screens allow visitors to digitally ‘pick up’ and explore precious artefacts. They simply click on the object on a touch screen and an image appears in the air above. The virtual fragments can be pieced together to illustrate a precious artifact.
Groups are encouraged to interact; to trace patterns from pottery and fire their own tiles, to dig for fragments or watch ‘finds’ being conserved in the laboratory. Replicas of a Tang Dynasty building plus dresses worn by courtesans bring the ancient civilisation to life.
The exhibition also highlights the wider importance of heritage to China and also explores world heritage from a Chinese perspective.
The Archaeology Centre opened in October 2010 on the grounds of Hanyuan Hall and took just 5 months to complete. As well as the centre, there is a garden with children’s interactives, café, reception area and 2 lecture halls. To give you a sense of scale, Hanyuan Hall is 2x the size of the palace at Versailles while the Daming Palace park is 4x the size of New York’s Central Park. Amazingly, there were a staggering 300,000 visitors on day one.
Team members from Imagemakers worked with the client team in their offices and spent 5 months in Xian, embracing the dynamic, can-do environment. They overcame cultural and linguistic challenges and found a country and a people thirsting for knowledge of their past, with a fantastic story to tell about the importance of heritage to modern China.
