Museum face-lift to offer new perspective of Great Wall

Renovation work to transform institution into top-quality national venue

The Great Wall, which has a total length of more than 21,000 kilometers and stands as a symbol of the Chinese nation, has been the subject of numerous legends over the centuries.

To offer a new perspective of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the China Great Wall Museum, which stands at the foot of the structure's Badaling section in Yanqing district, Beijing, is being given a major face-lift.

Wei Hua, 43, assistant curator of the museum, said: "The Great Wall has been preserved for generations. As someone who was born and raised in this area, I hope our generation can make more efforts to protect the wall and better integrate the lives of those living near it with the structure's deep-rooted culture."

After the renovation work is completed, the museum is expected to stand on an area of 16,000 square meters.

Wei said the museum was closed on April 6, and by June 22, its 5,741 cultural relics had been relocated to nearby district cultural institutions in Yanqing.

Wei speaks about the venue with pride. Built in 1994, it is a third-grade national museum constructed as part of the patriotic campaign "Love China, Preserve the Great Wall" launched by late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1984.

Located on a 10-meter-high terrace in a valley, the museum is about 400 meters from the entrance to the Badaling Great Wall. However, it attracts far fewer visitors than the wall.

Wei said that in 2019, before the pandemic emerged, the Badaling Great Wall welcomed some 10.35 million visitors, compared with 460,000 at the museum.

"A rough estimate showed us that only 8 percent of visitors to the wall's Badaling section visited our museum, which prompted the renovation work," he added.