‚China’s Mona Lisa‘ at the RÖDER Museum Pavilion

The palace Museum within the Forbidden City in Beijing needed an innovative design concept that fits perfectly into the architecture of the Forbidden City and offers enough space for the technological presentation of an ancient treasure, the so-called "Qingming Role". Röder China has succeeded in putting the project into scene with a self-designed 1,645 m² exhibition pavilion.

The National Art Treasure "Life along the Bian River at the Pure Brightness Festival" is one of the most important of the 1,860,000 exhibits of the Palace Museum and the most well-known work of ancient Chinese art. The Qingming Role of the painter Zhang Zeduan, about 25 cm high and more than 5 m long, shows the everyday life in Kaifeng, the capital of the Northern Song dynasty about 1,000 years ago. The painting – also called "China’s Mona Lisa" – is known for the detailed representation of urban life, of people and animals, of boats and bridges, of shops and landscapes.

The exhibition is divided into four parts: a huge digital edition of the original, the interactive theatre Sun Yangdian, a 4D full dome cinema and a cultural representation of the Song Dynasty. The unique innovative presentation of this masterpiece with the help of digital technology brings the historical work to life and makes it more attractive for a larger audience who wants to understand Chinese culture.

For this particular purpose RÖDER China designed and built a 25 m x 65 m x 7 m indoor and outdoor hall construction in the ancient Chinese style, matching the historic buildings of the Forbidden City. The imposing exhibition hall with a height of 6 metres offers the perfect space for a unique presentation. Curators and project managers of the Palace Museum are enthusiastic about the architectural realisation, the duration of the exhibition has been extended by 2 months due to the positive resonance.

RÖDER China
The Chinese subsidiary of the RÖDER Group has been very successful since 14 years with the event infrastructure for product presentations, trade fairs and exhibitions. In the cultural field, RÖDER China has already equipped some outstanding events of the visual arts, such as the Cadillac Design Art Show and the International Art Exhibition Wuzhen with textile architecture. RÖDER China also supplies large sporting events, the highlight were the Olympic Summer Games 2008 in Beijing, for this purpose the constructions formed a 40,000 m² tent landscape.