The city of Xi’an — the capital of the Chinese province of Shaanxi and the ancient departure point for the Silk Road, with a history dating back many thousands of years — has housed a branch of the country’s National Archives of Publications and Culture (NAPC) since 2022. The institution seeks to preserve and spread the word about China’s cultural legacy though a collection of ancient tomes, religious texts, prints, family trees, coins, stamps, wooden tablets, and even bone fragments used by oracles in the distant past to interpret the future.
There are over 50,000 books inside the Xi’an branch, including seven precious historic editions of the Communist Party Manifesto from different eras.
It also hosts two exhibitions dedicated to the importance of the Shaanxi region in Chinese history: Keeping Heritage Alive — Classic Western Chinese Cultural Publications and Chu Masterpieces in Ink — Publications on the Silk Road.
THE XI' AN BRANCH
The design of the Xi’an branch was entrusted to the China Northwest Architecture Design and Research Institute, a subsidiary of the China State Construction Engineering Corporation, led by Zhang Jinqiu (张锦秋), an architect, professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, and a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Her work is deeply influenced by traditional Chinese architecture, and strikes a perfect balance between science and beauty, ancient ideas and modern design.
The complex is built on the slopes of Mount Guifeng in the Qinling mountain range, and comprises a main pavilion and a series of additional pavilions on six different levels. The buildings are laid out symmetrically either side of a central axis and become progressively taller as one moves uphill, ending at the Wenji Pavilion, the heart of the structure and its main access point.
The Wenji Pavilion’s square form and stone walls recall the style of the Han (206 BC–220 AD) and Tang (618–907 AD) dynasties, and is crowned at the centre by a large, double-pitched roof and two double-pyramid roofs at the sides. All the roof coverings, with a total surface area of roughly 35,000 m2, are made of double-seamed sheets of Rock Grey colour titanium-zinc zintek® from «The Color Line» series.
The director of the NAPC Liu Chengyong (刘成勇) neatly summarized the institution’s mission in an interview with the China News Service: to protect and conserve Chinese civilization, strengthen its value, portray the country’s greatness abroad, and promote dialogue with other cultures. The archives “will form a bridge that facilitates exchanges and mutual learning between China and other countries”, so the world can better understand China and China can better understand the world.
