There’s no doubt that Sun Yat-sen got about a bit. It is hard to visit a major city in East Asia that he did not at some point live in, visit or have a cup of tea in. And of course there is something of a tug of war between nations to claim him as their own.

Now, I’ve been to a few of these memorial halls and they range from austere mausoleums to more informative visitor centres. Thankfully, this one in Taipei finds itself towards the latter end of the scale.

The exhibition component is divided into two main rooms. To the East are displayed documents relating Dr Sun Yat-sen’s founding of the Republic of China and to the West are the documents related to his visiting of Taiwan. I spent most of my limited time in the West rooms.

This is an extremely conventional exhibition distinguished mainly by the elegance of the display furniture design. There is also little accommodation of overseas visitors in terms of language or interpretation.

There are some quite successful examples of incorporating display into the overall environment.

And some simple but popular forms of interaction that make me wonder why they did not try to include more of this in the gallery itself.

The mind-bogglingly big National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan is a great example of the adage that when you have a collection of great, authentic objects you can let them speak for themselves. For instance, who can argue with a jadeite cabbage?

So the exhibits here are very much conventional art gallery showcases with text-dominated graphic panels. And none the worse for that. However, I was intrigued to find that one of the most popular exhibits is the spectacular scroll Along the River During the Qingming Festival (traditional Chinese: 清明上河圖; simplified Chinese: 清明上河图; pinyin: Qīngmíng Shànghé Tú).

But rather than display this in the rather traditional way that the vast majority of other exhibits are presented in the museum, they have provided some very effective digital animations at a number of key points along its length. Some are simply beautiful (flying in and around regal pavilions), whilst others are amusing (an old man gesticulates wildly at a boat passing beneath a bridge). I’d like to think that I may have had a small hand in inspiring this exhibit as when I was at MET Studio Design and coming up with ideas for the Hong Kong Wetland Park we designed an exhibit which did exactly this.

As you move the screen over hotspots on the scroll it triggers digital animations and information related to wetland themes. It is one of the favourite exhibits I have worked on.