The Bronze Chariots Museum / Atelier Diameter

Project Overview. In Lintong, Xi’an, Mount Li stretches hundreds of miles from east to west, immersed in a dark blue aroma, presenting a panoramic view from afar. On the vast plain slowly descending from the foot of the mountain towards its northern slope, stands a gigantic pyramid-shaped mound, solitarily yet proudly. This is the mausoleum belonging to the founder of the centralized imperial system in China that lasted more than 2,000 years - the First Emperor of Qin, Ying Zheng. The ambiance of the mausoleum survived the rapid urban development in modern China, and providentially keeps the landscape structure of mountains and plains as it was before the common era, projecting the ever-lasting charisma of the first emperor who conquered all the states and united China with unbounded confidence. The Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor is one of the first Chinese heritage sites to be inscribed on the World Heritage List (1987). In the new century, the municipal government of Xi’an plans to build a museum dedicated to the conservation, exhibition, and interpretation of two pieces of a national treasure, the “Painted Bronze Chariots, and Horses”, and in the meantime, diverting as many tourists as possible from the world-famous Terracotta Warriors and Horses scenic spot. The two painted bronze chariots and horses were unearthed from the western edge of the mound, about 8 meters deep underground. Compared to the universally renowned grandness of the terracotta army, the bronze chariots are only half the real-life size. But to one’s amazement, the bronze artifacts with hyper-realistic style are assembled from thousands of delicate metal components. Its exquisite and ingenious craftsmanship represents the highest level of human manufacturing techniques from more than two thousand years ago. Between the inner and outer city walls of the mausoleum, a meters-deep huge historically formed (circa Ming Dynasty) gully (Yue Gou) offers the only feasible site for the museum - the gully precludes any possibility of burying cultural relics beneath, which forms an important reason for the National Cultural Heritage Administration to finalize the site selection after much deliberation. It is an extraordinary serendipity that the "Painted Bronze Chariots and Horses" gets to return to the foot of the mausoleum mound and once again accompany the world's most mysterious emperor forty years after its excavation.