Shanghai Museum

This guide to the Shanghai Museum centers on Pan Dayu, a young woman in Japanese-occupied Shanghai during World War II, whose family had spent a fortune collecting ancient bronze ding — ceremonial vessels cast for royalty nearly three thousand years ago, one so prized that collectors called it a national treasure. When soldiers came searching the house for it, the family went to extraordinary lengths to keep it hidden, tearing up floorboards and staying silent as troops drained the garden pond. Notice how the museum building itself is shaped like a bronze cauldron balanced on a square base, round sky over square earth.