National Palace Museum: A Century-Long March from Wartime Crates to AI Dreamscapes

30-second overview: You know what? In October 2025, the Southern Branch of the National Palace Museum welcomed its 10 millionth visitor, and the museum also celebrated its centennial. This building with its yellow-glazed tiles and green eaves holds over 700,000 artifacts, and its story begins with a "great migration" in the 1930s to escape wartime: Beijing → Shanghai → Nanjing → caves in Sichuan → arriving at Keelung Harbor by sea in late 1948. These treasures lived for over thirty years in a sugar factory warehouse in Taichung and a mountain cave in Wufeng Beixou, before the Zhongshan Museum of Art was completed in 1965 in Taipei's Waishuangxi district and they were officially settled in Taiwan. Today in 2026, the museum is using generative AI to transform the immortal mountain mists of ancient paintings into virtual worlds that anyone can walk into.¹²

The Wandering Palace Packed in Wooden Crates

December 1948, Keelung Harbor, a cold sea wind. Several thousand heavy wooden crates were lifted ashore. They were not munitions — they were thousand-year national treasures that had wandered all the way from the Forbidden City. At first there was nowhere to put them; they could only be piled in a sugar factory warehouse in Taichung. Later, for air-raid protection, they were moved into mountain caves at Wufeng Beixou.³

In 1965, to mark the centennial of Sun Yat-sen's birth, the Zhongshan Museum of Art (today's Northern Branch) was completed in Taipei's Waishuangxi district. This collection of artifacts finally left "crate life" and settled in Taiwan. That wandering journey was not merely a relocation — it was a record of Chinese civilization seeking survival in the chaos of the 20th century, and it transformed the museum from imperial private collection into a public asset shared by this island and the entire world.⁴

The Taiwanese Misunderstanding About the "Sauerkraut and Pork Hot Pot"

The most-discussed "three treasures" among ordinary visitors, eight out of ten will say: "Jadeite Cabbage, Meat-shaped Stone, Mao Gong Ding." Because they look so much like food (a kind of hot pot dish), and because of strong promotion by early tour guides and the tourism industry, they became the most eye-catching photo attractions.

But this is actually an interesting "beautiful misunderstanding." According to official cultural heritage classifications, only the Mao Gong Ding is a genuine "national treasure" — the Jadeite Cabbage and Meat-shaped Stone are merely "important antiquities."⁵ The "three truly iconic works" that make international art historians hold their breath are three enormous Northern Song landscape paintings: Fan Kuan's Travelers among Mountains and Streams, Guo Xi's Early Spring, and Li Tang's A Myriad of Trees on Strange Peaks. These paintings are so fragile that they are exhibited only once every few years; the corridors are always packed with pilgrims so silent you can hear their breathing.⁶

2022: The Shattered Porcelain Incident and the Reality of Stewardship

For a long time in Taiwanese minds, the museum carried an absolute-safety filter — but in 2022 that filter was broken. Media revealed that within just two years three pieces of porcelain had been damaged (including a Qing Qianlong blue-and-white floral plate dropped through human error), and that the former director Wu Mi-cha had confirmed before the Legislative Yuan that at least 250 artifacts had been broken into fragments over nearly 50 years (dating back as far as 1973).⁷

This was not meant to tarnish the museum, but to make clear: protecting 700,000 national treasures relies not on myth, but on the daily painstaking work of inventory-taking, restoration, and management. It also reminds us how these artifacts, having settled in Taiwan, continue to be properly cared for in a modern environment.

Chiayi Taibao: The Ink-Black Giant Dragon Stretching over the Water

In 2015, the museum was no longer just Taipei's privilege. An "ink-black giant dragon" designed by architect Kris Yao rose in Chiayi Taibao — the National Palace Museum Southern Branch. The building uses three calligraphic brushstroke methods — "thick ink," "flying white," and "ink wash" — to model its architecture, sitting among the green rice paddies of the Chiayi Plain. The solid volume is the collection exhibition space; the hollow volume is the public atrium, connecting all spaces together. The Southern Branch does not follow the Northern Branch's "palace" approach — instead it focuses on "Asian art and culture": Indian textiles, Japanese ceramics, Buddhist sculptures — all gathered here.⁸

On October 11, 2025, the Southern Branch welcomed its 10 millionth visitor, marking its tenth anniversary. It is no longer a heavy palace but a modern public space where you can have a picnic, watch a water show, and get close to the farmland. Construction on a second building for the Southern Branch continues, expected to bring more digital exhibition halls and open collection storage in the future.⁹

2026: When National Treasures Meet Generative AI

Walk into the museum today and what you see may no longer be only static ancient paintings.

From February 3 to May 10, 2026, the "City Scroll: National Palace Museum × Hsinchu Digital Exhibition" was mounted at the Hsinchu Municipal Art Museum. Its biggest highlight was the "NPM AI Gallery" — which had returned in triumph from the Osaka World Expo in Japan. This technology, co-developed by the National Palace Museum and the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), uses generative AI and 8K ultra-high resolution to transform the museum's classic collection into an immersive interactive space. Put on a VR headset and you can walk into an ancient landscape painting — watch cranes fly overhead, even experience the interweavings of the island's past, present, and future.¹⁰

This is not just entertainment. Of 700,000 artifacts, only a few thousand can be exhibited at any one time — viewing them all would take a hundred years. Digitization is breaking through physical constraints, allowing this enormous heritage to truly "come alive" as a digital universe shared by all.

This Island Has Ultimately Become the Home of Culture

The National Palace Museum's existence in Taiwan is itself an ongoing dialogue.

It arrived on this island carrying the heavy baggage of "orthodox culture," but after democratization it gradually transformed into a carrier of multicultural values. We no longer only look up at imperial collections — we have begun to explore the technological flows, trade exchanges, and the connections between this island and Asia embedded behind the artifacts.

The 2026 National Palace Museum is no longer a cold political symbol, but Taiwan using democracy, technology, and openness to transform an externally-inherited legacy into a language the whole world can understand. It has long since grown its own roots on this land, becoming "Taiwan's Palace Museum."

Further Reading

• National Palace Museum Official Website — The most complete collection search and latest exhibition information.
• National Palace Museum Southern Branch Official Website — Explore the Southern Branch's Asian art hub in Chiayi Taibao and its architectural story.
• National Palace Museum Digital Archive System — Cloud gateway to over 700,000 treasures.
• National Palace Museum Open Data Zone — Over 70,000 high-resolution images available for free download.
• National Archives Administration — History of the Palace Museum's Relocation — Complete record of those "crate years."
• Centennial Anniversary Exhibition Zone — Learn about the "Ten Thousand Years in a Jiazi" centennial celebration content.

References