Essay Wow!

An architectual description of China’s Forbidden City.

Architecture mirrors the material and aesthetic standards of a society, and Classical Chinese architectural concepts are indissolubly linked with a social order at once real and ideal, with a structured vision of the universe and with a certain scale of values. The Forbidden City or Imperial Palace (also known as The Palace Museum) is a prime example of this combination of construction and philosophy.

Construction of the Forbidden City was started by order of the third Ming emperor, Yongle, in 1406 and was completed near the end of 1420, the eighteenth year of Emperor Yongle’s reign, at which time the Ming Dynasty officially moved its capital from Nanjing to Beijing. Over the next 491 years, twenty-four Ming and Qing emperors resided there.

When a Chinese city is first laid out, the founder begins by inspecting the region to determine its orientation. “He observes the shadows, examines the sunny and dark sides, the ‘ying’ and ‘yin’ of the country to see how the constituent principles of the world are distributed. Lastly, he finds out the direction in which the waters flow. It is he who must realize the religious value of the site, the ‘feng sui’”

The most ancient rules of Chinese town planning aimed at making the city a cosmos - a true image of the universe as a whole. This pursuit of harmony explains the great importance of orientation. The ideal city was a quadrilateral with walls pierced by twelve gates corresponding to the twelve months of the year. The royal residence lay in the center like a city within the city. Each edifice in the city had its proper place. In the middle, the audience hall opened on a road that passed between the Altar of the Sun and the Temple of the Ancestors and ended at the South Gate. This avenue was used by those on their way to pay homage. The emperor sat facing south, situated at the very heart of the city and, symbolically, at the heart of the universe. The Forbidden City follows these rules, as it can clearly be seen that the focus of Palace architecture as well as that of the surrounding Beijing is south to north.

The City is located in the center of Beijing, covering an area of 72 hectares. It is rectangular in shape, 960 meters long from north to sound and 750 meters wide from east to west. There is a 10-meter-high wall surrounding the City, which is also encircled by a 52-meter-wide moat. It is here that brick was used for the first time in the building of city walls in China. At each corner of the wall is a three-storied watchtower. Within its walls are more than 9,000 buildings and 9,999 rooms, the number nine having been deemed to be the luckiest of numbers. In fact, the number nine plays a vital role throughout the Forbidden City. For instance, each of the city’s four watchtowers is supported by nine beams and 18 pillars, and the roof of each has three layers of eaves, 72 ridges and a central gilded spire. The main palace buildings, are built in a symmetrical array, representative of the acme of China’s ancient architectural art, and are divided into two parts: the outer court and the inner court.

The outer court has three main halls standing on a three tiered, balustrade terrace of white marble: Taihehian (Hall of Supreme Harmony), Zhonghedian (Hall of Central Harmony) and Baohedian (Hall of Preserved Harmony). They are the places where the emperor receives high officials and conducted the administration of the empire. The inner court includes Qianqinggong (Palace of Celestial Purity), Jiaotaidian (Hall of Celestial and Terrestrial Union), Kunninggong (Palace of Terrestrial Tranquillity). These are the places where the emperor lived and conducted day-to-day administration. On either side of the three central palaces are twelve courtyards that were once inhabited by concubines, dowagers and maids.

Besides the use of brick for the outer city walls, the overall use of brick and stones, which had grown very sophisticated in the Song period (960-1279) allowed for a number of vaulted beamless structures. During the end of the Song period, timber was used extensively for support, however in the Ming and Qing dynasties, timber shortages gave birth to jointing and paneling techniques, by which huge columns and beams could be made out of small fragments of wood. Additionally, they began to connect beams and columns directly, thus simplifying the superstructures and relegating brackets to ornamental adjuncts on the eaves.

This simple timber structure however, did not prevent the architects of the time from making their buildings opulent. In actuality, the Ming and Qing dynasties represented the culmination of architectural extravagance, mainly through the extensive use of yellow glazed tiles, purple-red walls, white marble balustrades, ornate wooed, stone and metal carvings, gilding, lacquering, painting and inlaying.

The whole life of the city flowed through the gates. “The main entrance or gate in Chinese architecture has some specific significance. It is the only part of the structure that gives access to the outside world…thus the gate, becomes the object of much painstaking attention and effort on the part of the architects.” The most outer gate is Tiananmen Gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace). On important occasions such as the emperor’s wedding, an imperial scroll containing a formal announcement was placed within a long-ting (a special sedan chair) and carried from deep within the palace complex to this gate. People also gathered here each year during the eleventh lunar month to hear the proclamation of the new calendar.

The main entrance to the Forbidden City is the awesome Meridian Gate, the tallest structure in the palace complex at 37.95 meters. The gates were purple, a color symbolically attributed to the North Star and was used here to show that the imperial residence was a cosmic center and that the meridian line went through the center of the city, hence the name. The gate has five openings. The central passage was reserved for the emperor alone. High-ranking civil and military officials went in through the side gate on the east and royal family members on the west. The further side gates were for petty officials. This is also where the emperor would sentence prisoners to death or punishment. Those to be punished would be taken out of the gate and beaten with sticks. Those sentenced for execution would be taken to the market place.

Passing through the grandeur of the Meridian Gates lies an immense open square, the largest in the Forbidden City. This courtyard is flanked by 33 room-units on each side, again showing the Chinese belief in symmetry and numerology. On a terrace to the north stands the Gate of Supreme Harmony, used only by the emperor. To its east is the Gate of Luminous Virtue, reserved for civil officials, and to its west, the Gate of Correct Conduct, used by military personal. As evident by the exclusive gates, the ancient Chinese were very strongly bound to a class system, similar to those later used in Europe and to some extent, still prevalent in India today. The surrounding roofs are of yellow glazed-tiles, yellow being the color reserved for the emperor. While the Forbidden City was heavily guarded, the emperor still did not feel secure and was worried about tunnels, so the ground bricks of the courtyard were laid in 15 layers, seven lengthwise and eight crosswise.

The Gate of Harmony is guarded by a pair of bronze lions. In ancient times, lions were supposed to be good door keepers and put at the gate to ward off evil spirits. These gates are where the Ming emperors attended to state affairs and summoned their ministers for consultations. Later in the Qing Dynasty, state affairs were handled in the inner court.

Beyond these gates is the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the tallest hall in the Palace, standing 35 meters tall, where great occasions such as the Winter Solstice, Chinese New Year, emperor’s birthday and enthronement were marked. Above the throne was a “caisson” or coffered ceiling. It was an architectural decoration and was designed to create an aura of solemnity and mystery. In the middle of the ceiling is a design of a dragon playing with pearls, the pearls being made of glass, painted with mercury, and representing sunlight. Other parts of the Hall are decorated with phoenixes, flying horses and other mythical beasts which served to protect the emperor.

Just beyond the Hall of Supreme Harmony is the Hall of Central Harmony, a comparatively small structure where ceremonies were held to celebrate the beginning of each agricultural year. Buildings clustered to the east and west of the terrace served various official purposes. In many ways the Forbidden City functioned as a world unto itself; the vast complex included administrative building, storehouses, archives, archery ground, tea house, stables and gardens.

The third structure of the trio, the Hall of Preserving Harmony was where imperial examinations were held in order to fill jobs. Architecturally, this hall has no supporting pillars in its front, which was something typical of Ming architecture.

Continuing northwards is the Gate of Heavenly purity which opens into the Inner Court which was considered holy. All who entered it entered on foot with the exception of the emperor’s father who was permitted the special privilege of being carried.

The various palaces, gardens and halls of the Inner Court take up less than half the Forbidden City. It is here that the emperor, his wives, consorts and concubines conducted their private lives, and intruders discovered within these buildings were immediately put to death by strangulation.

An intricately carved marble causeway lead from the Gate of Heavenly Purity to three palaces which mirror the halls of the Outer Court, but on a smaller, more domestic scale.

Directly north of these places lies the Imperial Garden. Built in Emperor Yongle’s time, it is the oldest and largest of the palace’s three gardens. In the Ming and Qing periods, the art of garden making flourished. Not only the emperors but the rich and powerful, too, lavished money on building private gardens. The Imperial Garden strives to recreate nature in all its variety in a limited space. Literally translated, the Chinese world for landscape, shanshui, means mountains and water. Thus, in the Imperial garden rocks are piled high to resemble mountain peaks and meandering streams flow under arched bridges. “The Forbidden City’s classical gardens were built according to their respective natural topography in various delicate shapes and ingenious layout. They are unique in style in two respects: Being vivacious, appealing, natural and unrestrained much like the garden architecture of the southern provinces, yet on the other hand they are sedate and spacious, featuring the official construction of the north.”

As seen by the extensive and exquisite detail and planning that went into every step in the building of the Forbidden City, one can see the that the Chinese did not merely build but made all construction an extension of their spiritual, emotional and theological beliefs. Whether building a palace or a barn, there was always a striking harmony between the plan, the function and the visual and emotional esthetics.

Bibliography

Pirazzoli, Michele, Living Architecture: Chinese (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1971)

Shatzman-Steinhardt, Nancy, Chinese Imperial City Planning (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990)

Su, Gin-Djih, Chinese Architecture - Past and Contemporary (Hong Kong: The Sin Poh Amalgamated Limited, 1964)