Tianjin Cultural Center serves as urban lounge to satisfy citizens’ cultural and leisure needs

The cultural facilities of Tianjin Cultural Center have begun trial operation and the Tianjin Museum, Tianjin Art Museum and Tianjin Library Cultural Center have been opened to the public for free starting on May 19, 2012. The Tianjin Cultural Center is the city’s largest public cultural facility project that aims to promote the prosperity of local culture and benefit future generations. It covers an area of 90 hectares and includes a museum, an art museum, a library, a theater, a park, a square, an underground transportation hub, some infrastructure and landscaping facilities. These construction projects have a floorage of 1 million sq m, including 310,000 sq m in its four cultural venues.

The construction work on the Cultural Center kicked off in September of 2009 and it has been developed into an outstanding project in China. Tianjin Museum has a floorage of 57,000 sq m on its five floors on the ground and one underground. Its 14,000 sq m exhibition area is divided into 13 halls, which display historical materials, precious treasures, jades, calligraphy, painting and porcelain ware. The museum has more than 200,000 pieces of cultural relics, 200,000 volumes of books and reference materials and about 1,000 pieces of first-class national relics. The new venue of Tianjin Museum will exhibit around 5,000 pieces of cultural relics. It serves as a platform to display the city’s collection of cultural relics and promote cultural communication and exchange.

Tianjin Art Museum has a floorage of 32,000 square meters and five floors, including four on the ground and one underground. With an exhibition area of 10,000 sq m, it is the city’s first modelling art museum that aims to integrate collection, research, promotion and exhibition of the artworks of modern and contemporary artists. There are exhibition areas for contemporary arts, modern modelling arts, Chinese arts and a multifunction exhibition hall for fine arts. Tianjin Library Cultural Center has a construction area of 57,000 square meters and five floors on the ground and one floor underground. It collects books and provides lending service, digital reading, organizes academic exchanges, social education programs, and is responsible for protection and repair of ancient books. As a comprehensive public library that integrates gathering, sorting, collecting, storage and studying of literature, the center offers 24-hour self-service library for free and is a good place for lifelong learning. Tianjin Grand Theater has a floorage of 105,000 sq m on its five floors on the ground and three underground. The simple but magnificent architecture was designed as a stage for performance. It consists of an opera house, a concert hall and a theater, and has a total of 3,200 seats. More than 300 wonderful performances brought by domestic and foreign artists are shown annually. There are public cultural venues, a park and leisure center and playground for youth in Tianjin Cultural Center. It has played an important role in displaying classic artworks, promoting culture and arts, enriching people’s spiritual lives, and improving citizens’ cultural literacy.