ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the phenomenon in China's national museums but in doing so also reflects more generally on this museological trend. It examines the ways in which national museums throughout the world are reshaping their narratives of the nation in response to contemporary social phenomena, such as transnational social mobility and multiculturalism which seem to challenge the very notion of national identity. The chapter focuses on the Shanghai Museum, Beijing's National History Museum, Military Museum, Capital Museum and China Millennium Monument, and the Sanxingdui Museum in Sichuan. The majority of China's recently built and rebuilt national museums state their aesthetic intent in their architecture. Chinese artistic traditions are known for their refined and elaborate aesthetic canons which draw on ideas as balance, harmony, liveliness, spontaneity, and propriety. The transition to aesthetic displays was accompanied and expressed through a shift from chronological to thematic approaches.
