Building Archaeology(2011)

Building Archaeology Synopsis

The documentary Building Archeology (jiànzhú kǎo) (2011) considers the more recent past. It’s made up of three vignettes about different buildings in Beijing: a museum, an abandoned hospital, and a detention center. The latter two vignettes are especially interesting. In the second, a woman wanders around the ruins of a hospital built in a week to deal with the 2003 SARS outbreak. The third concerns a former prisoner, tracing out a map of the detention center where he was held in 2011.

Building Archaeology (2011) is a documentary film directed by Xu Ruotao, released on January 1, 2011 with a runtime of 16m.