Palace Museum now closed on Mondays
No one likes Mondays. But now the world’s most visited museum is giving itself the first day of the week off. The Palace Museum in Beijing receives over 10 million visitors a year and now the 600-year-old monument will be closed all day on Mondays.
Beijing's Palace Museum, more commonly known as the Forbidden City, is the largest and best preserved collection of ancient buildings in the world.
The complex exemplifies traditional Chinese palatial architecture and has been a major influence on cultural and architectural developments in East Asia, which is why visitors from around the world flood in here on a daily basis. But the ancient site cannot sustain this burden.
The world's most visited museum, Palace Museum, known as the Forbidden City, is getting the first day of the week off.
"The pressure is simply too great. No museum in the world opens 365 days a year. With so many priceless collections and so many tourists it’s a tremendous strain on staff," said Shan Jixiang, director of Palace Museum. "It’s like a person who is ill carrying on working."
But closing on Mondays does not mean no work - staff continue to do maintenance work on the collections and structures and run tests on security systems. Training courses are also being conducted to improve management and services.
"Preservation should always be of prime importance for the artefacts here, and only then can we contemplate how to present it to the public, because we want future generations to also enjoy our rich heritage," Shan said.
Setting aside a day per week to close is common practise for museums around the world. The Louvre in Paris and The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in Russia all have a weekly closing day to recuperate.
Many hope the Palace Museum will emerge refreshed after its Monday breaks.
