Porcelain House (China House)

Porcelain House

Located on the Chifeng Road of the Heping District in Tianjin, the Porcelain House (the China House) is a French-style building embellished by porcelain. Standing before the house, tourists will be amazed by the colorful chinaware cemented onto the wall. The windows, doors, pillars, eaves and roofs are all exquisitely decorated with different chinawares. Moreover, tourists will find beautiful porcelain decorations on the handrails, ceilings, and walls inside the house. The house is so extraordinary that it has no parallel in the world.
 

First built in the 1920s, the Porcelain House covers a total area of 5,000 square yards (4,200 square meters). Adopting the architectural principle of eclecticism, the building is in French style as a whole but with an Italian-style corridor. It was inhabited by contemporary Chinese diplomat Huang Rongliang.

In September 2002, Zhang Lianzhi, a businessman, artist and collector, bought the time-honored building at the price of CNY 30 million. He decided to transform it into a porcelain building to spread chinaware culture.

On September 3rd, 2007, the house was open to the public. Since then, it has become a landmark in Tianjin. On September 23rd, 2010, it was listed by the US Huffington Post as one of the fifteen museums with unique designs, together with the Louvre Museum in Paris, French, and the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, America.
 More than CNY two billion has been invested into the decoration of the Porcelain House, using more than 700 million porcelain pieces, 4,000 ancient china vases, 400 white marble sculptures, and 40 tons of crystal and agate. Moreover, 13,000 ancient plates and bowls, 300 cat-shaped porcelain pillows, 300 white marble lions during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and Song Dynasty (960-1279) have been used in the embellishment.

The porcelain pieces come from different historical periods. The celadon in the Jin Dynasty (265-420), the tri-colored glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty, Jun china and Longquan celadon in the Song Dynasty, the blue and white china in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and the rose china in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) can all be found on the walls in the house. All of them are cemented and glued to become part of the building.

On the roof of the building circles a gigantic dragon adorned by chinaware with a length of 840 yards (768 meters) and a width of 0.87 yards (0.8 meters). Even the drainpipes outside of the house are embellished with crystal and cat-shaped porcelain pillows.

Inside the building, the ceilings and handrails are decorated with chinaware, too. The house preserves hundreds of precious furniture from Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty, and more than 200 calligraphies and paintings both from home and abroad, including the masterpieces of Chinese great masters Zhang Xuan, Qi Baishi and Xu Beihong, and foreign masters Van Gogh and Picasso. All of precious treasures and china make the house inestimable and splendid.

Furthermore, the house dexterously combines traditional elements with Chinese culture. The outside of the wall is decorated by vases, and they are called "Walls of Peace". Because "vase" sounds like "peace" in Chinese, the designers used vases to wish for peace and safety. Similarly, white marble sculptures and rock images are used frequently to symbolize good luck and chance. At last, the vivid dragons and phoenixes on the eaves symbolize auspice and prosperity.
 

 By Metro:
Take metro line 3, get off at Heping Road Station, leave from Exit B, and walk southwest.

 By Bus:
1. Take bus line 9, 37, 91, 92, 93, 185, 611, 629, 826, 827, 828, 830, 831, 837, 838, or 851, get off at the Central Park Station, and walk westward.

2. Take bus line 1, 4, 9, 35, 50, 611, 619, 650, 693, 808, 831, 838, 845, 851, 860, 901, 902, 904, 951, 962 or sightseeing bus no. 393, get off at Shandong Road Station, and walk northeast.
 Tianjin Bus/ Metro Search

 1. Tianjin Central Park
2. Central Square Park
3. Italian Style Street

Top 10 Things to Do in Tianjin