Drive straight to the east from Chang’an Street, when you reach the exit Gaobeidian of Jingtong Express way, you will find some building groups in the design of Ming and Qing Dynasty. This is the where Zitan Museum or better known as Red Sandalwood Museum. This museum was officially opened its door to the public in September of 1999 and was one of the major construction projects in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of People’s Republic of China. This is also the largest museum which specified in collect and displays the art products of red sandalwood throughout the nation.
In fact, the building of Red Sandalwood Museum itself can be considered as a perfect artwork. The overall design of the museum which covers an area of over 25000 square meters is magnificent and exquisite in every tiny designing detail. At the same time, it is also a perfect integration between the beauty of ancient architecture and the modern design.
The main entrance of the building was made solely by wood materials. The four wooden pillars which support the main entrance are as high as eight meters. No matter it is evaluated from its size or the materials that it used, it is special and rarely seen throughout the artificial ancient architecture in China. Moreover, some experts who used to work in Forbidden City in early years have been invited to assist in completing the landscape design of the museum.
The exhibition hall of Red Sandalwood Museum is about 9569 square meters and is divided into Display Hall, Educational Hall, Multi-purpose Hall, Tourist Information Center, Souvenir Shop and etc. There are many specified sections that made up the Display Hall, such as the Front room Display, Study room Display, Bedroom Display, Wedding room Display and many other rooms in ancient Chinese residence.
There are over thousands pieces of sandalwood collections throughout this museum including some precious artifacts of Ming and Qing Dynasty. Besides that, there are handmade miniature structure of Jiaolou (Corner Tower) of Forbidden City, Longquan Temple’s Archway of Shanxi Province and Beijing Siheyuan display within the museum as well. Another must visit corner of the museum is the Qingming Shanghe Tu (Along the River during Qingming Festival) which was carved on sandalwood. This is one of the greatest artwork as sandalwood is used to replace the silk and carving skill replacing pen brush.