Imperial Kiln Museum

A museum of imperial Chinese porcelain built directly over the excavated site of the Ming and Qing imperial kilns, designed by architect Zhu Pei with brick-vaulted galleries that echo the form of the kilns themselves.

The Imperial Kiln Museum (御窑博物馆) opened in 2020 on a site in the centre of Jingdezhen that has been producing porcelain for the imperial court since the early Ming dynasty (14th century). The museum is simultaneously an architectural landmark, an active archaeological site, and a collection of ceramics covering six centuries of imperial production.

The building was designed by Chinese architect Zhu Pei of Studio Zhu-Pei. Rather than building over or obscuring the kiln excavations, Zhu Pei sited the museum's galleries to incorporate the ruins, with a series of vaulted brick structures whose curved forms deliberately reference the elliptical kiln chambers used to fire porcelain. The brickwork — using locally sourced materials in a traditional bonding pattern — gives the interior a warm, earthy quality that contrasts with the porcelain objects displayed within. The relationship between container and contained, between kiln and vessel, between industrial process and aesthetic object, is the organising idea of both the architecture and the collection.

The collection covers the full span of imperial kiln production at Jingdezhen, from the Yuan blue-and-white porcelain that established the city's pre-eminence through the Ming polychrome wares (doucai, wucai, famille-rose precursors) to the technically demanding Qing imperial output under the Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong emperors. Many of the objects on display are fragments reassembled from the excavated kiln waste pits — pieces that were deliberately smashed on site to prevent sub-standard goods from leaving the imperial works, and which have now been painstakingly reconstructed by the museum's conservation team. These reconstructed sherds sit alongside intact vessels, making visible the gap between intention and survival.

The archaeological site beneath and around the museum remains active — excavations have been ongoing since the 1980s and continue to reveal new material. The museum provides interpretive displays on the excavation methodology and findings, and the visible incorporation of excavated ground into the viewing experience is distinctive among Chinese museum presentations.

The surrounding area of central Jingdezhen is itself a working ceramics quarter, with active studios, the Taoxi River market, and the older Ancient Kiln Folk Scenic Area nearby — the museum is best visited as part of a full-day ceramics circuit rather than as a standalone stop. [VERIFY: current opening hours and entry fee — May 2026]