National Museum of History Audio Guide

National Museum of History: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to the National Museum of History

   Welcome to the National Museum of History, known in Chinese as 國立歷史博物館. You are standing on Nanhai Road in Taipei's Zhongzheng District, at number 49, beside the Taipei Botanical Garden. This is the grand palace-style building with the sweeping roofs, and it sits within a small cluster of cultural institutions often called Nanhai Academy. The museum is a pioneer. It was the first public museum set up by the government after it relocated to Taiwan, and it opened in the mid-1950s. Its collection now numbers close to 60,000 items, from ancient bronzes to modern paintings. Even the building tells a story, because behind its Chinese imperial look is a very different earlier life. In the next few minutes, we will look at how the museum was founded, how a Japanese-era wooden building became a palace-style hall, and what treasures lie inside. Take a moment to look up at the roofline first, then walk with me.

2. 02

   National Museum of History: A Museum Born in a Garden

   The story begins in 1955. Chang Chi-yun, then Minister of Education, was convinced of the power of public education. He looked to the Smithsonian in Washington, where museums gather in a park-like setting, and imagined Taiwan's first cluster of national museums in the Taipei Botanical Garden. Because the cultural zone sits right beside Nanhai Road, it was named Nanhai Academy. The National Museum of History was the first to be founded there. It was established on the fourth of December, 1955, under the name National Museum of Historical Artifacts and Art, and Bao Zunpeng became its first director. It formally opened on the twelfth of March, 1956, the anniversary of the death of Sun Yat-sen. In 1957, on the tenth of October, it took the name you see today. Other institutions soon joined it: the National Central Library, a science museum, an education materials center and an arts hall. Together they became known as the Five Nanhai Institutions, and in their day they were a major engine of public education. In 2012, on the twentieth of May, the museum came under the Ministry of Culture as part of a government reorganization.

3. 03

   National Museum of History: From Japanese Timber to Palace Style

   Here is the surprise. The palace you see is not the original building. The site began as a Japanese-era wooden structure, built in 1916 for a Taiwan trade exhibition and used as a guest hall. It later served as the Taiwan Governor-General's commodity exhibition hall. In 1955 it was handed over to become the museum's home. Between the 1950s and the 1970s, the building was expanded and rebuilt several times. In 1971, the exhibition building was demolished and replaced, working in stages over about five years. Architect Lin Bonian designed a palace-style hall in a Ming and Qing manner, with one floor underground and five above. Two side halls were added on the third floor and joined to the main hall by corridors. At the Nanhai Road entrance, two gate pillars imitate the stone gate towers of the Han dynasty. By 1975, the Japanese-era look had vanished completely. Look at the roof: it is a hip-and-gable design with double eaves, imposing and grand. Its style reflects the postwar cultural policy of reviving Chinese culture. In 2007, on the ninth of February, the building was registered as a Taipei historic building, and its group of neighbors in Nanhai Academy was valued for its urban landscape.

4. 04

   National Museum of History: Treasures and Collections

   At first, the museum could only show Chinese culture through models, specimens and pictures. Its real foundation arrived in 1956, when it took over two batches of Chinese cultural relics that Japan had returned, relics taken since the First Sino-Japanese War, along with part of the collection of the former Henan Museum, today's Henan Museum, which had traveled to Taiwan during the war years. Since then, transfers from government offices, donations and purchases have grown the collection to nearly 60,000 items. Among them are five national treasures and 42 sets of important antiquities designated by the Ministry of Culture. There are Spring and Autumn period bronzes and jades excavated at Xinzheng and Huixian in Henan, and Tang dynasty tricolor ceramics from Luoyang. There are rich holdings of coins and of modern and contemporary painting, which bring out the everyday, popular side of the collection. Across 19 categories, you will find painting, calligraphy, jade, pottery, porcelain, prehistoric painted pottery, Shang and Zhou oracle bones and bronzes, stone Buddhist carvings, early twentieth-century furniture and puppets. Past exhibitions have also reached far abroad: in 1966 the museum became a sister museum to national museums in Mexico and Argentina, and in 1967 a tour of Chinese relics visited Argentina, Chile and Uruguay.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off from the National Museum of History

   The museum has recently opened a new chapter. Because of limited space and safety needs, it pursued an upgrade plan, with restoration and reuse work starting in March 2019. Offices and storage were moved out to free up exhibition space, and the museum reopened to the public in February 2024, while keeping the building's distinctive character. As you go, try noticing how many layers this single place holds: a Japanese-era exhibition hall in its origins, a postwar vision of cultural revival in its roofs and gate pillars, and a living museum with exhibitions today. Its stated mission is to be a museum that helps people understand Taiwan's modern and contemporary social and cultural history. Before you leave, glance at the neighboring buildings of Nanhai Academy and the green of the botanical garden next door. What does each building say about the era that shaped it? That question is a good companion for the rest of your walk.