Beijing’s Top 10 : Museums

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  1. Arthur Sackler Museum

    Part
    of the Beijing University archeology department, this museum has a
    collection that spans 280,000 years, from the Paleolithic era to the
    Qing dynasty. As well as fossils and bones, it includes beautiful
    bronzes and fine ceramics.

    • Beijing University campus, Haidian district

    • 6275 1667

    • Open 9am–4:30pm daily

    • ¥20 (foreign visitors must bring their passport)

  2. Ancient Architecture Museum

    Close
    to the Temple of Heaven, south of Tian’an Men Square, this place is
    worth visiting for the museum building alone, which is the pavilion of a
    former grand temple complex .

  3. Capital Museum

    Formerly
    housed in the Confucius Temple, this museum now boasts a huge, modern
    five-story building near Fuxingmen. It documents Beijing’s history
    through more than 200,000 relics and archival images. Among the several
    permanent exhibitions is the fascinating “Stories of the Capital City –
    Old Beijing Folk Customs” .

  4. Imperial City Museum

    After
    wandering around the Forbidden City, call by this nearby museum to see
    all the bits of imperial Beijing that didn’t survive. The walls and
    gates that once encircled the city, along with literally dozens of
    vanished temples, are revisited through a great many maps, models, and
    photographs.

  5. Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution

    Visitors
    to the museum are greeted by paintings of Mao, Marx, Lenin, and Stalin,
    at least two of whom were fully conversant with the various methods of
    bringing death and destruction celebrated inside. The ground floor is
    filled with fighter planes, tanks, and missiles, while displays upstairs
    chronicle China’s military campaigns .

  6. China National Museum

    What
    the Metropolitan Museum is to New York and the British Museum to
    London, the China National is to Beijing. The building is currently
    undergoing a massive restoration program and is slated to reopen in
    2010. The focal point of the new design by German architectural firm gmp
    is the building’s sensitive integration in Tian’an Men Square .




    China National Museum

  7. Science and Technology Museum

    Exhibits
    at this suitably hi-tech looking complex start with ancient science and
    come bang up-to-date with space capsules and magnetic-levitation trains.




    Science and Technology Museum

  8. Natural History Museum

    There
    are around 5,000 specimens on display, including a fine collection of
    models and skeletons of dinosaurs, and other creatures that are even
    more prehistoric than the Socialist stylings of the museum building .




    Natural History Museum

  9. Beijing Police Museum

    Housed
    in the 19th-century former City Bank of New York in the old Legation
    Quarter, this surprisingly fun museum boasts displays on themes such as
    the suppression of counter- revolutionaries and drug dealers. Famed
    police dog Feisheng is here – stuffed and mounted – and there are live
    transmissions from a roadside traffic camera. An interactive screen
    poses legal questions and correct answers win prizes: it doesn’t say
    what the punishment is for those who answer wrongly.

    • 36 Dong Jiao Min Xiang

    • 8522 5018

    • Subway: Qian Men

    • Open 9am–4pm Tue–Sun

    • ¥5

  10. National Art Museum of China

    The
    largest art museum in the country, with an impressive 64,580 sq ft
    (6,000 sq m) of floor space, the National Art Museum of China hosts
    exhibitions by internationally renowned Chinese and foreign artists.
    Recent shows have included fascinating retro-spectives of Gerhard
    Richter’s paintings and Cai Guo-Qiang’s gunpowder works .