Beijing’s cultural heritage profited from the 2008 gold rush, new palace rooms were opened, museums rebuilt, and new museums popped up everywhere. The following is a list of the finest museums in Beijing for viewing collections of ancient objects, ephemera, folk arts, or other things I like that contribute to visual culture that is China. For a NYT article on the semi-recent museum policies in China, see “China’s Legacy: Let a Million Museums Bloom“

To find addresses, contacts or maps to the following museums, please consult the Museums and Gallery Guide of ching.org.cn, or this tourism site, their listings should be accurately updated, although their descriptions might be a little dry. Please note that a recent “free museum” policy dictates visitors call ahead to reserve tickets, on busy holidays and weekends the daily quotas can be exceeded, so best to call ahead, and bring your I.D. card or passport. See also a new guide to China’s Museums, reviewed on sinopop.

Palace Museum 故宫博物馆
The collection at the Palace Museum in Beijing might not house as many masterpieces as its cinder block equivalent in Taipei (fleeing nationalists took the bulk of the imperial treasures to Taiwan over half a century ago), but it truly is the jewel in China’s crown.  Wikipedia has details on the collection.  The Beijing Palace Museum rotates its collection on display, clocks are on permanent display within the palace, and they host exhibitions regularly, the building itself is a work of art.

National Museum 中国国家博物馆
On the east side of Tiananmen Square, this behemoth of a socialist edifice has a significant collection of 620,000 historical artifacts spanning Chinese history. But you can’t see any of it––it is a sleeping elephant, massive restoration will see her doors reopened in 2011(we hope!), with 28 new exhibition halls and more than double the previous exhibition space for a whopping 192,000 square meters. Befitting the reputation of China’s national museum, this will be one of the largest museums in the world; her socialist facade will remain unchanged.

National Art Museum of China 中国美术馆
The national art gallery comes under a lot of heat for its lack of “curatorial integrity”––meaning that it rents itself out at high costs to anyone who can foot the bill. In that sense, is it really much different from UCCA? Museum director Fan Di’an is trying to change that, of course, but changing old institutions in China is slow, I’ve heard it called, “like turning a freighter on a dime.” Exhibitions are short (from 10 days to three weeks) and quality is greatly varied. A great new website has updated exhibition information in English, and there are usually a few concurrent shows featuring anything from folk arts to ink and brush works, to conceptual sculptures by famous artists like Zhan Wang.

Capital Museum 首都博物馆
This stunning building was co-designed by French-Chinese architects, its structure mimics a bronze vessel, and oh, so many similar objects does it hold inside! One day won’t be enough to go through the permanent exhibition halls, especially since museum tickets have been free, and crowds of locals go there to soak up the culture. There is a decent display of scrolls, Buddhist statuary and a thorough history of Beijing folk customs in dioramas. There are also exhibitions of jade objects, painting and calligraphy, and Yan bronzes unearthed in surrounding Beijing. On the very top floor of the “vessel” you can visit a mock “scholar’s room” where relevant tools are on display, paper, ink, seals and brushes. Read an introduction to the museum here.

Beijing Museum of Natural History 自然博物馆
While not exactly housing a collection of art objects per say, the Beijing Museum of National History is housed in an enormous Soviet-style exhibition hall similar to the National Art Museum and National Museum. Welcome to kitsch junkies, the museum still has a whiff of China’s old-school exhibition layout and dioramas, lots of dinosaur skeletons, apparently still shows the frightening skinned human bodies, although I’ve heard their days are numbered.

Poly Museum 保利伯博物馆
The Poly Museum was established by the Real-estate conglomerate the Poly Group, its stated goal is to “repatriate” lost treasures into China. One of the treasures of this little museum is four of the 12 zodiac animal heads that were looted from the Old Summer Palace in 1860. The rest of the museum features a well-presented collection, and is located in the new Poly Plaza — the brutalist looking concave building on the southwest corner of Dongsi Shitiao (subway).

Central Academy of Fine Arts 中央美术学院美术馆
The new CAFA Art Museum (CAFAM) was designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozak, its bizarre shape has elicited love-hate responses from both the public and students. The museum has a small collection of works from famous alumni, it hosts rotating exhibitions of academic quality, sometimes contemporary art shows, such as Nam June Paik, and product launches, Prada most recently.

Arthur M. Sackler Museum 北大塞克勒博物馆
One of three museums benefiting from Arthur M. Sackler’s Beijing endowment, for those inclined, Beijing University’s museum has an excellent collection of bronzes and prehistoric vessels. BJU is renowned for having the best archeology department in the country, many objects on display were excavated by the students and staff from the Archaeology Department; their collection includes 10,000 objects spanning a period of 280,000 years, from Paleolithic hominids and stone tool remains to costumes, ceramics and paintings of the present era.

Prince Gong’s Mansion 恭王府
Aside from being China’s best preserved Qing mansion and gardens, Prince Gong’s Mansion has a collection of calligraphy, paintings, jade objects, bronzes, and furniture in various states of display around the home. Built in 1777, the mansion reopened in summer 2008 with more rooms than ever available for viewing. Live opera performances are staged in authentic surroundings on the stage, closed in the winter season, website not in English.

Museum of Ancient Architecture 古代建筑博物馆
Located within the Altar of Agricultural sacrifice west of the Temple of Heaven, this charming museum features a floor model of Old Beijing, meticulous wooden models of ancient architecture and a pictorial analysis of architectural history in China. If you didn’t know about the fascinating art of mortise and tenon architecture, you will when you leave, although it might not make sense. Interesting pre-Qin tiles and bricks are on display (questionable authenticity), this museum is a kind of antithesis to the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall (see below).

China Millennium Monument 中华世纪坛
Built as a monument to the millennium, the pseudo-modern (should I call that “China-modern”) building houses China’s collection of international arts and is dedicated to displaying art from around the world. A few contemporary Chinese art exhibitions have surfaced here, including Gao Minglu’s “The Wall,” overall the venue oriented to a conservative Chinese audience. Nonetheless, the Millennium Monument bring in quality exhibitions, with high profile works, and provides the city with an architectural landmark. You might be tempted to stop in at the military museum next door.

Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall 京市规划展览馆
And you thought that Beijing didn’t know anything about urban planning… you can find four floors of objects, maps, and highlights of the city within. No surprise, you can get a close look at Olympic architecture, the CCTV tower, as well as some ancient architecture, but the museum’s highlight is the exhibit where satellite images of the city have been reproduced room size: lighted dioramas show highlights in the city center, glass underlit tiles show highly photoshopped map the rest of the city, although with all the demolition, its going to become dated soon.

Song Tang Zhai Museum of Traditional Folk Carving 松堂斋民间雕刻博物馆
Li Songtang opened his museum of carvings (mostly architectural structural elements) in 2001,  it was the first privately-owned museum in China and maintains the atmosphere of a collector’s shop. There are 3000 items on display, including wooden piers and stone carvings collected from homes across Beijing. Mr. Li is doing his best to preserve a bit of the cultural heritage that is demolished for the new, modern Beijing. Admission is by donation; please note its new location at Guozijian, 300 meters across from the western gate of the Lama Temple (Yonghe Gong)

China National Film Museum  北京电影历史博物馆  
Its distinct shape protruding from the flat, desolate surrounding farmland has made the Cinema museum a signpost for gallery-goers in Caochangdi. The interior is just as odd as the facade, with five floors of maze-like Chinese film history presented in dioramas and over many, many film stills on poster board (all Chinese). There is also an imax theater, and daily screenings of films in a digital, state of the art theatre (see website for schedule).

Cultural Palace of Nationalities (Ethnic Minorities) 民族文化宫
The truly socialist-China mission of this place inspires nostalgia for the old days, when happy ethnic minorities might have paraded for commie leaders in celebration of racial harmony. The building retains a pre-reform grace, and rotating exhibitions feature the costumes, musical instruments, and arts and crafts of those 56 national minorities.

Ming Huang Wax Palace 明皇蜡像宫
With 26 independent scenes illustrating Ming dynasty life and 374 wax figures, Ming Huang is keeping that creepy art of wax portraiture alive. Perhaps there was surplus talent left over after the celebrated wax figure in Tiananmen … Located in Changping, north of the city. A must-do pilgrimage for followers of the cult of strange.

A view inside the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall