Huang Shi Cheng Art Gallery, also named Biao Zhang Ku, is a Chinese royal archive protected most perfectly. It was in charge of keeping the royal annals of the Ming (1368-1644) and the Qing (1644-1840) Dynasties. The copy of Yong Le Encyclopedia (the first Encyclopedia of China) compiled in the reign of the Ming Chengzu in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) once was preserved here too.

Huang Shi Cheng Art Gallery was first built in the thirteenth year (1534) of the Jiaqing reign of the Ming Dynasty. It was once the outer annexe of the old city, and kept its original style in the Ming Dynasty after several times of reconstruction later. The whole house of Huang Shi Cheng Art Gallery, surrounded with red high walls, was composed of the main hall, east and west side halls and the imperial stele pavilion, etc. The main hall is made of wood-like bricks, and is nine-bay wide with a hip roof. Its roof, ridges and chiwen (a kind of ornament of roof ridge) are all covered with yellow colored glaze tiles. The wall is built by laying special grinding bricks. Plagues, cup-shaped arches, doors and windows are all carved out of white marbles, and colored paintings are on cup-shaped arches. Without any girder or pillar, the vaulted roof in the hall was called No Girder Hall. There is a white marble pedestal of 1.2 meters high, which is carved with basso-relievo of Dragon Swimming in Seawater on the floor. The pedestal is decorated with 152 camphor wood arks carved with patterns of cloud dragons, and the arks are 1.31 meters high, 1.34 meters wide, and 0.71 meters thick. That is where the archives are treasured up. Windows face to each other in the south and north, making the air convective and fresh. The characteristic of the structure and interior establishments is fireproofing, moisture-proof, moth-proof and free of rat bites. It is not only a building that combines artistic feature, scientific level and practicability, but also a representative of stone room and golden box architecture style recorded in historical books.
 

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