Decades-old Zhuhai Museum in Jiuzhou Town of Jida closed July 3 as the new Museum & Urban Planning Exhibition Hall on Central Lovers Avenue in Old Xiangzhou nears mid-August completion.

Facing Xianglu Bay in the east and Yeli Island across the water, the hall covers 50,300 sq m (12 acres) south of Sea & Sky Park. It has floor area of 55,800 sq m (14 acres), of which 33,600 sq m (8 acres) are for exhibitions.

Permanent closure of the Jiuzhou Town museum [Photo by Zhu Xi / Zhujiang Evening Post]

Huafa Group is currently refining the interior decoration. The new hall is planned as a significant patriotism and socialism education base and venue for government affairs publicity and exhibitions, as well as for external exchanges and cooperation.

Jiuzhou Town opened in 1984 as Zhuhai's first famous tourist attraction. It was designed in an archaic architectural style with yellow encaustic tiles, double-eave hip roofs, pavilions, corridors, and a lotus pond.

It had been a shopping mall for household appliances, jewelries, jades, antiques, calligraphy works, paintings, drugs, daily necessities, and clothes before Zhuhai Museum relocated there in December 1999.

One of the distinctive garden-styled museums in China, the facility consisted of 13 exhibition halls. More than 10,000 pottery, porcelain, bronze ware, coins, famous calligraphy works, and paintings were on display. Highlighted artifacts included local unearthed cultural relics collected from the sand dunes of the late Neolithic Period. The museum had been open to visitors free of charge since Jan 1, 2009.

Zhuhai Museum & Urban Planning Exhibition Hall [Photo by Ye Qiuming & Li Jianshu / Guanhai App]