Shanghai plans to build a bow-shaped museum to protect a river control works archaeological site in downtown this year.

The site, more than 700 years old, was discovered by workers at a construction project on the corner of Zhidan Road and Yanchang Road W, in May 2001.

The museum design is a reference to bows and arrows being the weapons of choice by the ruling Mongols in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). They were also preferred by Genghis Khan, the Mongolian leader.

"The museum will become a very special construction," Cai Zhenyu, an architectural designer of Shanghai Xiandai Architectural Design Group, said yesterday.

The site covers a ground area of about 1,600 square meters, including the ruins of river control works of the Yuan Dynasty.

During the past six years, local archaeologists have been working carefully to excavate the site. The major part of the river control works is a stone gate, about two meters underground.

The ruins are close to the old course of the Wusong River - which used to be a part of today's Suzhou Creek.

The blueprint of the museum resembles both a floodgate and a bow, with two pillars in the middle and descending glass-steel structures on both sides of the pillars.

(Shanghai Daily January 24, 2008)