PUHM / Peking University History Museum

Contemporary museum has assumed a central role in the configuration of the city and public space becoming the privileged space of cultural encounter and communication for the media and the general public. Museum increasingly presents itself as the space of expression of new cultural horizons and symbolizes the event of this public rite rather than limiting itself to the pure display of works of art. Museum becomes the icon of contemporary urban space.
In the last decades there has been a constant evolution in the approach of visitor/audience of contemporary museums, leading to a sharper differentiation of the levels of use and experience: from a first level characterized by a rapid and basic understanding aimed at collecting only few key concepts about the topic, to the increasing request of a more profound level of awareness tied to the wide diffusion of a larger level of interest in artistic events together with the raise of importance of free time and cultural tourism for the masses. Visitor becomes the active subject of architectural form. His/her visual and sensorial perceptions needs to be stimulated through spatial articulation and the choice of materials.
One of the goals of the project is to promote a renewed synergy between architecture and the exhibition, in order to render the museum a flexible structure that is capable of transforming and evolving in its content. The image of the new Peking University History Museum is thus that of a exhibition mechanism, technologically complex and advanced and with ample margins of flexibility in the articulation of spaces and functions, capable of renewing its contents and updating the multimedia systems of communication, in synthesis to follow and confirm the growing rhythm of transformations of the historical and scientific research.
Peking University History Museum is a symbol and an icon of the city and the province itself, an important window through which to interpret the history and culture of Beijing and China.
Peking University History Museum is turned into a complex system, a machine that allows for the “coexistence” of temporary display spaces for ‘events’ and the rooms that house the collection.