The Library Pavilion in Hue

The Imperial Library was built by Emperor Minh Mạng in 1825 in the middle of Học Hải Lake, within the imperial city. More than 1,000 laborers were mobilized to dig the lake, build the island, and construct the building.

With its structure built entirely of brick, stone, and mortar, the Library Pavilion is a very different building compared to the hundreds of wooden architectural structures of that time.

The building has two floors; the lower floor has 11 rooms, and the upper floor has 7 rooms and 2 wings. All rooms are used to store important documents of the Nguyen dynasty, most of which are paper and woodblock prints.

This is a rare "library" from the monarchical period that is still relatively well-preserved in Hue , a unique architectural structure within the complex of wooden architectural relics of the Nguyen dynasty capital.

According to the book "Tàng Thư Lâu bạ tịch" (1907), the documents stored here are important diplomatic documents between Vietnam and France, between Vietnam and the Chinese imperial court, documents of the Six Ministries (Personnel, Household, Rites, Military, Justice, Public Works), printing blocks of books of the imperial court... among which the number of land registers is very large.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/TapchiHeritagevn