Rabbit sculpture on display inside the Poly Art Museum.

A thrilling discovery, this exquisite collection of treasures is hidden halfway up an office building! China's state-owned Poly Group has funnelled a fraction of its mega-wealth into buying up Chinese antiquities from auctions overseas, displayed here on artfully lit plinths. There are ancient bronzes from the Shang and Zhou dynasties, vividly detailed Buddha statuary, and several of the 12 bronze zodiac animals plundered at the sacking of the Old Summer Palace in 1860 – Poly Group is still rounding up the rest.

Buy your tickets from the information counter in the lobby of the Poly Plaza building, then ride the lift to the 9th floor.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Imperial Granaries

0.11 MILES

Several teetering old storehouses here once held grain and rice for the imperial family. Today they've been integrated into a fairly lacklustre enclave of…

2. Galaxy Soho

0.81 MILES

After the CCTV Tower and the Bird's Nest Stadium, Beijing's Galaxy Soho trumpeted itself as the capital's next modern architectural landmark when it…

3. Overseas Chinese History Museum

0.82 MILES

Charting the history of Chinese emigration from the era of the Silk Road to the present day, this is a terrific museum with full English captions…

4. Sheng Xi Fu Hat Museum

0.85 MILES

This branch of the famous Sheng Xi Fu Hat Store has a quirky, free-to-visit hat museum out the back, revealing the history of the company and of hats in…

5. Dongyue Temple

0.88 MILES

Dedicated to the Eastern Peak (Tài Shān) of China’s five Taoist mountains, this morbid Taoist shrine is an unsettling, albeit entertaining, place of…

6. Duan Qirui Former Government Building

0.89 MILES

This imposing slab of Republic-era architecture, complete with brick clock tower, is the former headquarters and residence of Duan Qirui, a warlord who…

7. Zhihua Temple

1.05 MILES

Lost in a tumbledown hutong neighbourhood, this Buddhist temple is one of Beijing's best-preserved Ming dynasty structures. It was built in 1444 to honour…

8. Shijia Hutong Museum

1.12 MILES

Shijia Hutong has seen plenty of action over the decades, as this spiffy museum in a rebuilt sìhéyuàn (courtyard residence) explains. English is ample…