Abstract

In 2009, the Chinese Government held the Great Sites Protection Summit Forum in Luoyang city to promote the integration of site museums into urban life. This paper has selected the Luoyang Zhouwangcheng Emperor Six Horses Carriage Museum in Luoyang as an example in order to explore the relationship between exhibition methods and the local environment. This museum has preserved the relics of the large-scale carriage and horse pit of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty at the original discovery site since 2002. It has a branch maintaining a similar discovery in 2009, which was integrated into the Tanggong Road primary school. Because the museum and its branch are located in the city center of Luoyang, they have faced many design and functional challenges shared by other urban site museums, including the limitation of space and appropriate preservation of archaeological discoveries. By identifying and analyzing these challenges, this paper suggests that the museum has developed a unique way to engage citizens, which provides a useful reference for understanding site museums in the urban area of China.