Chengdu Museum 成都博物馆

About Chengdu Museum

Archaeological objects establish the earlier settlement, while the puppetry and shadow-puppet collection provides a different way to understand performance traditions. Compare a city-history section with the figures and carved forms used in performance, rather than trying to absorb every floor in one visit. The central location also makes the museum’s exterior easy to relate to the civic square.

The museum originated in a preparatory committee for a Chengdu topographical museum, established on 15 September 1958 at Daci Temple (大慈寺) under deputy mayor Li Jieren (李劼人). It opened to the public in 1984 at that site. Construction of a new building on the west side of Tianfu Square began in 2009, and it opened on 11 June 2016, designed by Sutherland Hussey Harris (萨瑟兰-赫西建筑事务所) together with AVIC CAPDI and Pansolution (泛道国际设计公司).

The new building covers a site of about 11,333 square metres with a total floor area of 65,000 square metres across nine storeys, its exterior clad in 20,000 square metres of gold-coloured copper mesh. A raised plaza on the east side links Tianfu Square with Huangcheng Mosque (皇城清真寺) and serves as the museum's entrance. The structure rests on a steel diagonal-rib frame, its largest exhibition hall spanning 30 metres, above a base-isolation layer with over 300 rubber bearings built to withstand a magnitude-8 earthquake.

The collection spans more than 4,000 years, from Neolithic pottery of the Baodun (宝墩), Jinsha and Sanxingdui cultures to the Republic of China period, and numbers more than 200,000 items. Notable pieces include a stone rhinoceros made before the Western Jin dynasty and a lacquered acupuncture-point figure excavated from the Han-dynasty Laoguanshan tombs (老官山汉墓), described as China's earliest such medical model.

What to look for

• Historical artefacts trace Chengdu’s development through successive periods.
• Puppets, shadow figures and carved objects reveal the material side of performance traditions.

Location & getting there

Getting to Chengdu Museum

The museum is at 1 Xiaohe Street on the west side of Tianfu Square. Arrive at Tianfu Square station on Metro Lines 1 or 2 and follow the museum signs.