New art era unfolds

The National Art Museum of China, at twice the size of Louvre, is set to be the world's largest, Deng Zhangyu reports.

Home to many museums and art galleries, Beijing will anticipate the world's largest art museum when the new National Art Museum of China begins construction next year, say officials with knowledge of the design of the planned structure.

"If we put in parallel the Palace Museum with the Louvre, the National Museum of China with the Orsay Museum, we think the new museum should play a role like the Pompidou Center does for France, " says the museum's deputy director Xie Xiaofan, speaking at a public forum last week.