Work on new science museum to start

Writer: Han Ximin  | Editor: Holly Wang  | From:  | Updated: 2019-09-18

The city aims to start work on the new Science and Technology Museum before the end of the year.

The new museum will open to the public in 2023.

After having been shelved for nearly a decade, the plan for the construction of the new facility has made encouraging progress.

At a meeting Monday, representatives from Shenzhen Science and Technology Association told an inspection team of the city’s political advisers that the international bidding invitations for the designs will be completed in October, the final design will be decided in December and engineering projects will be completed before the end of 2023.

The new science museum will be located at the intersection of Guanghui Boulevard and Guangming Boulevard in Guangming’s Science Town. It will be close to Guangming Station of Line 6.

The 2.1 billion yuan (US$296 million) project will occupy 66,000 square meters of land and have a 50,000-sqm park for science popularization.

According to the current plan, the facility, with a floor space of 125,000 square meters, will be divided into seven functional areas, including a display area, science movie area, innovation area, exchange area, and public service and business administration areas. The science and technology display area is the core section that covers 35,000 square meters.

The Shenzhen Science Museum was built in 1987 as one of the cultural landmarks of the 1980s. However, the 12,000-sqm facility couldn’t meet the city’s development needs and has turned into a venue of different training centers.

In 2006, the city started to plan a new science and technology museum, but the planning was halted for various reasons, such as the choice of location, size of the venue and low approved budget.

In 2016, some political advisers suggested speeding up the construction of the new venue at the Second Session of the Sixth Shenzhen CPPCC committee. It was originally decided for the new facility to be built near the new Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center in Bao’an, but the location was later changed to Guangming.

The new Shenzhen Science and Technology Museum was listed as one of 10 new culture and sports landmarks at the end of 2018.