The Palace Museum of the Manchurian Regime used to be a palace where Puyi, the last emperor in Chinese history, lived at the end of Qing Dynasty, bearing witness to the Japanese Invasion of Northeast China by force and the implementation of fascist colonial rule. The Museum, built on the palace’s original site in 1962, is now a National First-class Museum and a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit. In recent years, with the development goal “To be a pioneer in the innovative operation of Chinese museums + scenic spots”, it has explored and expanded the functions of museums by embracing digital era and achieves all-round innovation in preservation, research, exhibition, social education, cultural and creative activities, etc. by relying on collection resources.
The Museum won the title of “Most Innovative Museum” in the activity of International Museum Day (China) in 2020.
Under the principle of respecting the original historical architectural buildings, the “6R Mode” turns the restoration project into an academic research project and a practice promotion project, namely: Research (document arrangement), Retrospect (tracing the source of construction), Record (image recording), Report (engineering report), Result (achievement exhibition) into the entire Repair project. In 2018, the Preservation and Repair Project of Jixi Building and Tongde Hall of the Museum won the landmark award “Excellent Historic Sites Protection Project of China”.
Centering upon the core issues of smart museums, a smart museum joint laboratory has been set up along with universities, scientific research institutions, and internet companies. The upgrading of smart core businesses and transformation of the operation of the Museum will be further promoted with an aim to be data-driven, all-time, and borderless. The museum industry has been upgraded and the era of smart museum 2.0 kicked off by providing think tank consulting, solutions, and technical projects for the cultural and museum industry and SaaS cloud services for small and medium museums.
Using the digital resources of the museum, the digital exhibition project with the holographic display system of cultural relics, “Gewuke (observers for things) Blog”, and 720° panoramic VR pavilion as main content, provides audiences with an online platform for exhibitions, cultural relics appreciation, exchanges and research. The “Changchun Story—Cloud Classroom of Research Study” was launched, making virtual travel in the City of Changchun without leaving home accessible to the public, which has attracted over 10,000 people.
Based on IT (Information Technology) and C2 (Command and Control Theory), 3D realistic view and visual information can be integrated in one map and real-time information be gathered to the command center through sensor equipment in the museum, making it possible for the command of all positions with one-click, quick coordination among police, traffic police, and administrative enforcement, and timely assessment of the safety of cultural relics, audience, and operation, which can deliver the overall security goal. This system has now been fully demonstrated and promoted in culture and museum systems in Jilin Province.
In 2019, the youth education course—“Changchun Story, City History Classroom” was launched. This project was jointly initiated by the Education Department, museums, and media, setting a precedent for normalizing the idea of museum education in classes. It was awarded “Top Ten Teaching Cases for Youth Education Course of Chinese Museums”. It is the first to create an exclusive “Wenbo (culture and museum) Bookshelf” in public libraries, making museum publications available to public spaces such as libraries, schools, and communities. It now has covered 101 libraries of all levels in China.
In 2019, a large-scale original academic historical drama, Broken Dreams in Hsinking, a creative transformation of the research on Puyi, took place with more than 5 million participants. In the same year, the first patented font with independent intellectual property rights in China’s museums, Mangong Dewen Type Font, was developed. A 365-episode original series of short films “Today in the History of Changchun” was broadcast across local media, with over 10 million viewers. China’s first media convergence publication, Changchun Rizhilu (Daily History Record of Changchun),was produced, perfectly integrating pictures, text, audio, video, and handwritten diaries for the first time, telling the history of the city, and conveying cultural connotations by using AR technology.
“Puyi Research Institute” aims to promote cross-regional and cross-disciplinary integrated research, making the research of Puyi and his time a new diversified model of academic research. The 100th Unit of the Japanese Invaders in China / Sorting and Research, which is urgently sorted and published, has filled the gap in the research on the historical materials on biological warfare related to World War II. Tutorial videos of Changchun Cultural Heritage and Museology Lectures were viewed more than 10 million times online and offline. “Gewuke Blog” digital platform for collaborative research on cultural relics aims to create an interactive and shared historical research and exchange center for the public.
The Palace Museum of the Manchurian Regime, warm and vigorous, launches creative public cultural products with its resources and charm, which is innovative in running and active in social progress, not only providing quality resources for the public to renew their knowledge, but also creating a fun space for the spread of community culture.