Wang Shu Room

The Throne Room, designed by the Chinese architect and Pritzker Prize winner Wang Shu and named after him to represent Chinese court art, is completely different in its structure, materiality and impression from the exhibition rooms adjacent to it.

The room is dominated by the enormous roof construction, which is based on the Chinese pagoda form and seems to float under the ceiling of the hall. It was made of poplar wood and consists of 1300 individual parts, which were connected by 1500 screw connections. Each of the 11 bays has a total length of 17 meters at a height of 4 meters. The whole construction weighs about 16 tons and hangs on the floor ceiling at 176 points with 4 anchors each.

The floor of black natural stone is surrounded by clay-plastered wall surfaces.A niche set in stainless steel holds the large-scale mural “The Buddha Sermon” by court painter Ding Guangpeng (active 1708 – 1771). The work (543 x 1015 cm) is extremely sensitive to light and is presented only a few times a day. The throne seat in the center of the room is the only one in European collections that still stands in front of the screen that originally belonged to it. In delicate colors, it shows a depiction of the “Paradise of the Daoist Immortals” – if the emperor sat in front of it, he was thus symbolically accepted into their realm. The enormously elaborate inlays of countless tiny pieces of mother-of-pearl, gold and silver foil make this imperial ensemble a work of special artistic splendor.