In its first eight years, the museum was housed in the Chongde Hall of the Jesuits. In 1922, with the support of the Catholic Church and the French Concession, Licent built a special building for the museum on the land adjacent to the Tsin Ku University, which was founded by the Jesuits in China.

With help from Teilhard and others, Licent collected over 200,000 paleontology, animal, plant, ancient human, and rock specimens for the museum, which still make