Twenty noted architects have gathered in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern Sichuan Province,to help Fan Jianchuan, a private collector, design a cluster of private museums on modern Chinese history, which are set to be the country's largest on completion in 2005.
Several top architects submitted proposals to a symposium on the designs of the Jianchuan Museums. Among them were academicians from the Chinese Academy of Engineering, professors from the elite
Beijing University, Qinghua University and
Nanjing University, and Li Xinggang, chief designer of the 2008 Olympiad sites in Beijing.
Fan's museums, located in Anren town of Dayi County, next to the former residence of a notorious landlord named Liu Wencai, will include eight museums commemorating different periods of the Chinese revolution, and 12 on the Cultural Revolution, a 10-year movement initiated by late Chinese leader Mao Zedong in 1966.
Unlike traditional, all-inclusive museums, Fan's private museums would epitomize China's modern history throughout the past century, said Prof. Zhang Yonghe with
Beijing University. "The 20-odd museums, all interconnected, will be an ideal base to carry out cultural and educational activities as well as academic research."
Fan said he would display over 200,000 historic photos, posters, stamps, chinaware, letters, documents with self-criticism, uniforms, badges and other antiques he had collected from the Mao era.
The museums would also house his collection of over 10,000 paintings, manuscripts and other antique items from wars in China's modern history, before the People's Republic was founded in 1949,said Fan.
One of the museums will feature over 100 pieces of classical furniture owned by celebrated people around the 1900s and later taken over for use by senior Chinese leaders and state guests.
Fan's collection of more than 300 dainty pencil vases, made of porcelain, bamboo, marble, white jade, ivory and cloisonne, will also be exhibited to showcase China's long standing culture.
Fan has spent 30 million yuan (3.6 million US dollars) over the past 20 years collecting the antiques. His museums, covering 33 hectares, will cost another 100 million yuan (12 million US dollars).
Fan said he wanted to revive China's modern history. "I love collecting things about the past, especially about war times, because by remembering the past, we learn to cherish the present and love peace," he said.
To that effect, Fan said high technology would be used in his museums to reproduce scenes from old revolutionary films and popular songs in the 1960s and to make video games with old themes.
Fan, 47, had been a soldier, a teacher and vice-mayor of his hometown
Yibin city for two years, before he stunned the public in1993 by resigning from the post -- all on his own initiative -- totake up junior positions at companies in Chengdu.
In the following year, he set up his own business, the Chengdu-based Jianchuan Group, which is heavily involved in real estate, hotels and cultural projects.
An avid collector, Fan said his earliest collection was his own report cards from kindergarten when he was just five years old.
