Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 2604 The New Building is Completed

"My requirements aren't high. I'll have a lot of fun just fixing calligraphy and paintings regularly." Zhou Zhi laughed and disagreed: "Master Ma, you should be content. You already have a private museum, the first of its kind in the country. You can't keep thinking about finding bargains at the Da Liushu Ghost Market. There's no chance of that anymore."

“That’s true. Doing it that way now would actually cost far more in time than in the value of the items you find.” Old Ma chuckled to himself, “But we’re talking about fun now. Old Ma’s fun, lost at the Big Willow Tree Ghost Market, is gone forever…”

Actually, Zhou Zhi and Master Ma were talking about the realm of collecting. When economic strength and vision reach a certain level, ordinary things are no longer valued. Collecting also requires selection. Some items that are not valuable, or that are too complicated for an individual, need to be eliminated when the time is right. Only in this way can a specialized system be formed and improved.

For example, Zhouzhi's collections now generally fall into three categories: Ming and Qing dynasty furniture, calligraphy and paintings, and porcelain. The rest, such as bronzes, jades, and miscellaneous items, except for those that are meaningful to the collectors themselves, such as those inherited from Mr. Wang, or those that are exceptionally valuable, are basically all considered "playing to support one's hobby," reselling them to make money for their own enjoyment.

Like Fan Zeng's paintings, Zhou Zhi acted exceptionally quickly in the island nation.

Although we have now moved beyond the stage of severe financial shortages and the need for barter, for Zhouzhi, who has progressed from a "collecting enthusiast" to a "collector," expanding the scope of their collections while weeding out the less valuable items is something they should be doing.

According to the history of the previous life, China's first private museum would not have been established until the following year. It was located on Liulichang West Street in Xuanwu District, with an exhibition area of ​​400 square meters.

Soon after, they moved to Chaonei South Street, and then to Huazhi Building in Zhugan Hutong, South Street, Chaoyang District.

Seven years later, the museum will be relocated to Jinzhan South Road, Jinzhan Township, Chaoyang District. At the same time, a board of directors will be established, and five years later, a museum foundation will be established to ensure the museum's operation and survival.

During this period, branch offices were also opened in Shanghai, Macau, Yuhang and other places.

However, things changed in this lifetime.

Firstly, among Master Ma's collection, the Ming and Qing furniture section came from Master Wang's collection. In this life, Master Wang transferred the collection to Zhou Zhi, so Master Ma's furniture collection became much weaker.

Furniture is a very space-consuming collection, and now that the furniture is gone, Mr. Ma's venue doesn't actually need to be very large anymore.

Secondly, there was the issue of the museum's location. In the previous life, due to contractual issues and demolition problems, the location of the old museum in the capital was moved repeatedly.

Thirdly, there's management. Initially, Mr. Ma didn't intend to set up a council. He only started setting up the council after ten years of working with museums.

The current situation is that the furniture collecting sector is gone. Master Ma is quite independent. Since he can't be the top collector, he'll give up the top collector altogether. He transferred all the Ming and Qing furniture he had collected from the Capital Furniture Factory to Zhou Zhi, making Zhou Zhi the most outstanding Ming and Qing furniture collector in the country.

However, this comes at a cost. Firstly, it requires meticulous and extensive cooperation in the collection of architectural components.

Zhouzhi conducted extensive investigations and salvaged a large number of architectural components during the cultural heritage preservation work of the Three Gorges Project. Most of these components were transferred to the Yutang Foundation by the local government through "allocation," and these components, of course, cannot be moved.

However, a considerable portion of these items come from private individuals, specifically ancestral homes, and meet the criteria of "orderly inheritance." These items are privately owned and can be traded in the market as collectibles.

The collection of these items has become complicated, with many sellers waiting for a higher price, or many good items ending up in the hands of local resellers.

Zhou Zhi was too busy and didn't have the patience to deal with these people, but he could pass on their information to Master Ma. So now, Master Ma, who was a great collector of Ming and Qing dynasty furniture in his previous life, has transformed into a great collector of ancient architectural components. This category shouldn't be underestimated either. Ancient architecture is extremely exquisite, with brick carvings, wood carvings, stone carvings, lacquerware, and various doors and windows, whether intricate or simple, made of precious materials, all of which are quite valuable.

These things are best reflected in the architecture, which can become the biggest feature of the museum. Therefore, Mr. Ma simply asked Zhou Zhi again to transfer a piece of land.

The courtyard houses chosen by Zhouzhi all have preservation value, and they were also classic ancient buildings moved from various places during the reconstruction. With increasingly strict protection policies, the possibility of them being demolished after construction is almost non-existent. This matter served as a reminder to Master Ma.

So he also chose a piece of land at the foot of Jingshan Mountain, which used to be the site of the Beishan City God Temple, and submitted a report to the Cultural Relics Administration Bureau, preparing to rebuild it as an ancient building and use it as a museum.

The design scheme will make extensive use of bricks and components from the Ming and Qing dynasties in order to authentically reflect the solemn and grand characteristics of ancient northern architecture.

The cultural relics administration was naturally happy to see this happen, but where did these bricks and stones come from? Naturally, they came from the old courtyard houses that were demolished in Zhouzhi.

Therefore, a significant portion of the main building of Master Ma's museum was actually assembled using materials from old courtyard houses in Zhouzhi, along with ancient architectural components he collected himself.

What now stands on the original sites of those courtyard houses in Zhouzhi are guild halls, gardens, academies, and private residences salvaged from Hubei, Shanxi, Huizhou, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces.

Because Zhou Zhi had contributed so much, Master Ma felt embarrassed not to give an explanation. So, following the model of Zhou Zhi's operation of the Yu Tang Cultural Relics Protection Fund, he created his own "Guanfu Council" to coordinate all parties and maintain the operation of the museum. The first council member he brought in was, of course, Zhou Zhi.

They chatted along the way and soon arrived at Beishan City God Temple, the location of Guanfu Museum in the capital city.

This location is excellent; you can see the scenery on Jingshan Hill, and from the second floor you can also see the palaces of the Forbidden City.

However, the surrounding area is still desolate, and you can even see farmers' vegetable fields and shacks not far away. Master Ma felt it was too shabby and that it would be more cost-effective to rent a venue on the mountainside near Liulichang and renovate it.

Zhou Zhi persuaded him to give up the idea, and then patted his chest and guaranteed that if his senior brother agreed to his suggestion of buying land and rebuilding, Zhou Zhi could lend him the money for the land purchase and the money for restoring the ancient buildings, with the interest calculated at the lowest bank interest rate.

I will also recommend the best ancient architecture teams to my senior colleagues.

Zhou Zhi has now gotten to know a large group of ancient building restoration experts, all of whom have backgrounds in the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. Their skills are unquestionable, and they have been supporting him since he was restoring his own courtyard house.

However, many of these experts have now gone to Datong. It was Zhou Zhi who recommended them to the local government through Tong Xiaolin. As a result, Tong Xiaolin was remembered by local officials and received a lot of convenience and guidance from experts when writing papers.

Standing before the two-story building with its green tiles and white walls, a blend of modern and classical styles, Zhou Zhi couldn't help but exclaim, "Look how beautiful this is! Renting a venue means the landlord will impose all sorts of restrictions on you. Nothing beats the freedom of doing as you please!"

"I think you're eyeing my collection." Master Ma, looking at his hard-earned treasures, was clearly pleased but deliberately teased Zhou Zhi: "Start by becoming my biggest creditor." (End of Chapter)

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