National Chorography Museum Southern Silk Road Branch - Tea Horse Road Museum

In Aofeng Village, within Yunnan’s Shaxi Town, a giant horseshoe of five-colored rammed earth rises near the historic Chenghuang Temple. This is the Tea Horse Road Museum, designed by architect Huang Yinwu as a branch of the National Chorography Museum Southern Silk Road Branch. The building stands on a sloped topography, its jagged outer boundary conforming to the irregular borders of the site.

The exterior walls contain soil gathered from over twenty historical trading nodes, including Xi'an, Zunyi, Pu'er, and Lhasa. These soils are layered chronologically, creating bands of red, yellow, and brown that mimic sedimentary records. At the entrance, a perspective illusion embeds the silhouette of a horse caravan directly into these earth layers. Visitors touch the rough, compressed dirt, feeling the physical dust of the ancient trade routes.

Inside, the building relies on traditional Chuantou-style timber framing. Huang Yinwu arranged these wooden frames radially, a structural choice that increases physical stability far beyond standard rectangular designs. This radial layout leads visitors into a curved, quiet inner corridor. Here, local woodcraft masters carved a continuous sequence of 114 traditional lattice doors. The top sections of these doors form a single wooden canvas, depicting the landscapes and outposts of the "Zhang Shengwen Painting."

As people walk along this circular corridor, motion sensors trigger the acoustic environment. The air fills with the sharp clattering of hooves and the metallic resonance of ringing camel bells. This sensory engineering bridges the gap between the modern visitor and the historical traders who crossed the high passes.

The museum houses over one hundred historical artifacts and fifteen hundred specialized books under its permanent exhibition, "A Civilization Tribute to Scaling the Roof of the World." It occupies a space that once served as a village school and a grain storehouse, preserving the local memory of Jianchuan County. The architecture remains a quiet observer, holding the dust of the road and the echoes of the bells in a single, circular embrace.