Of his design, Professor Huang states that the interior space was carefully and functionally planned, while the exterior was meant to create a feel- ing of grandeur .. "A neo-renais- sance Chinese satisfies Chinese peo- ple in general and foreign tourists in particular."
The museum building has four storeys and a total building area of 7.240 sq. metres. The ground floor houses a complex of offices, recep- tion, conference rooms, research storage, library and a 300-seat lec- ture hall with complete audio and visual equipments. There are also several workshops including a photo- graphic laboratory, mounting shop. carpenters, and machine room for power and air conditioning at this level.
The second floor has a big central exhibition hall rising through two storeys, with four square exhibition halls at each corner. Galleries on all sides of the main hall connect it with the corner halls.
The third floor follows the plan of the second floor. its central area be- ing the upper part of the grand ex- hibition hall.
A pavilion with cantilevered bal- conies at four sides occupies the cen- tral and topmost part of the building and is surrounded by a terrace and roof garden.
Tile Facing
The exterior is simplified and pre- sents clean unadorned wall lines. Pillars are used only on the fourth floor pavilion which has a Chinese roof and some decorated brackets on the eaves.
Most of the walls are faced with a specially designed quarry tile, pat-
Detail showing the yellow and brown, patterned wall tiles
terned and yellow tinted to resemble Chinese silk. The pattern changes as the sun moves over the building. In a high humidity zone these tiles also serve the functional purpose of pro- tecting the exterior wall from gather- ing moss.
The facing tile used for the lower part of the exterior walls is Chinese brown glazed tile, embossed with Chinese caligraphy saying "construct- ed in 1965" and decorated with dra- gons and other ancient ornaments. White artificial stone with crushed granite chips make up the balustrade.
The blue-green roof is clearly dis- tinguishable against its green back- ground, being ridged by yellow. The architect has tried to use as few tiles as possible on the roof, without los- ing its Chinese character.
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View showing the huge retaining wall below the museum
Far East Architect & Builder February, 1966
Close-up of a brown glazed tile
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