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The Palace Museum. | The Palace Museum is situated in the center of Beijing, the capital city of China. It was established on October 10, 1925, and is China's largest museum.
The museum is also known as the 'Purple' Forbidden City in Chinese, or the Forbidden City as it is commonly known in English. It covers 720,000 square meters and was the imperial palace for a succession of twenty-four emperors and their dynasties during the Ming and Qing periods of Chinese history. The museum is also China's largest and most complete architectural grouping of ancient halls. Construction was begun in 1420, the eighteenth year of Yongle, so that the site has
existed for the past 580 years.
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The Three Great Halls in the Forbidden City. | More than 70 halls of various sizes, containing more than 9,000 rooms, comprise the Forbidden City. These halls are aligned along a north-south axis, and extend
out on either side in an east-west symmetry.
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The recessed ceiling of the Taihe Hall in the Forbidden City. | The central axis not only passes through the Purple Forbidden City, but extends south to Yongding Gate and north to the Bell and Drum Towers, for a length of some eight kilometers. This passage through the entire city of Beijing symbolizes the centrality of the imperial power: the imperial seat is at the very center of this line. The architectural design lines up the buildings in neat array and with imposing scale. In a concentrated form, this assemblage expresses China's artistic traditions in the setting of China's unique
architectural style.
Entering the Forbidden City from Tian'an Men, one first moves straight through the Duan Gate to arrive at Wu Men, or the great Wu Gate. The popular name for
Wu Men is the Five
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A panorama picture of the Palace Museum taken by satellite. | Phoenix Tower; this is the front entrance to the Purple Forbidden City. Going through Wu Men, spread out before one is a broad courtyard with the twisting course of the Jinshui Creek (Gold Water Creek) passing from west to east like a jade belt. Five marble bridges have been constructed over this waterway. Passing through the Taihe Gate to the north of the bridges one reaches the core of the Purple Forbidden City, the famous three great halls called Taihe Hall, Zhonghe Hall, and Baohe Hall.
Taihe Hall is 28 meters high and occupies a space of around 2,380 square meters. It is the largest hall in the Palace. A red-lacquered dais around two meters high sits in its center, on which is placed a golden lacquered and carved dragon throne. Behind the throne is a screen carved with dragons and on either side of the dais are six great golden pillars with vigorous golden dragons coiling up them. In the recessed ceiling well above the throne is an extremely large coiled golden dragon, with a silvery pearl suspended from its mouth. The Taihe Hall was the location of the Emperor's most important ceremonies, such as his own inauguration, his birthday, New Years, the arrival of winter, and so on.
Behind the Taihe Hall lies the Zhonghe Hall. This is a square hall with four
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| The marble royal ramp of the Baohe Hall in the Forbidden City. | ridge poles along the roofline that unite at the top in a large, round, gilded topknot called a baoding. The profile of the building is extremely beautiful. When the Emperor was
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| The bridal chamber for emperors of the Qing dynasty. | about to officiate at important ceremonies, he would first rest in this building and receive visits of his various Ministers.
Behind the Zhonghe Hall is the Baohe Hall. In the Qing dynasty, every New Year's Eve, the Emperor would hold a great banquet in this hall. This also was where the highest exam of the Ke-ju exam system was held.
Emerging from the Baohe Hall and following the stone stairs downwards one arrives at an open rectangular courtyard. This space divides the Purple Forbidden City into front and back. To the south of the square are the three main Halls and, to east and west of them are the Wenhua Hall and the Wuying
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| The Thousand Autumn Pavilion in the Imperial Garden in the Forbidden City. | Hall. These are commonly called the 'Outer Court,' where the Emperor primarily conducted affairs of state. To the north of the square, inside the Qianqing Gate, was the Inner Sanctum. In the Qing dynasty, this is where the Emperor and his Empresses and Concubines lived. The main buildings include the Qianqing Palace, the Jiaotai Hall, the Kunning Palace, and six palaces to east and west.
The Qianqing Palace was at one time where the
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| The dragon throne in the Taihe Hall in the Forbidden City. | Emperor slept. During the Qing dynasty, however, the emperors used this as a place of daily administrative
affairs. Later emperors also met foreign emissaries here. Behind the Qianqing Palace is the Jiaotai Hall, which is where memorials to the Empress were conducted and where she received congratulations on her birthday. It also is where the Qing dynasty's twenty-five 'treasures' were kept, the twenty-five seals by use of which the Emperor manifested his rule. Behind the Jiaotai Hall is the Kunning Palace, which was originally a sleeping chamber for the Empress. Later in the Qing dynasty it was made into a place where offerings to gods were made and also where the Emperor was married.
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The Taihe Hall in the Forbidden City. | The Qianqing Palace, the Jiaotai Hall and the Kunning Palace together constituted the Rear Three Palaces, their placement being basically the same as the Front Three Halls, but with decoration and coloring that were markedly different. The Front Three Halls used dragons as a primary motif. The Rear Three Palaces saw phoenixes gradually increase until there were numerous flying phoenixes, dancing phoenixes, phoenixes with peonies and other such decorative elements.
The East and West Six Palaces, where the concubines lived, were commonly known as the 'Three Palaces and Six Courtyards.' Today the Six Palaces of the East have been made into exhibition halls in order to display the rare paintings, ceramics, bronzes, and various crafts that were collected and kept in the Palace. The Six Palaces of the West are basically as they were, unchanged,
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The Sansi Hall (Treasure Hall) in the Palace Museum that collects ancient calligraphic treaxures. | so that people can see the actual living conditions of the feudal period, the historical reality of how royalty lived.
The most notable building is the Yangxin Hall, the Cultivating the Mind Hall.
Qing-dynasty emperors mostly lived here, from the Emperor Yongzheng onward,
or for some two hundred years. The Yangxin Hall therefore became the center of
daily governing activities. Emperors often received Ministers here and issued decrees and orders. Two thrones were placed in the eastern room of the Yangxin Hall, to front and back; between them was suspended a golden-colored screen. This was where the Empress Dowager Cixi ruled from behind the screen (she lived from 1835-1908, was of the clan of Yehenala, and she ruled from behind the screen in two periods in 1861 and 1873).
From the Yangxin Hall moving northwards, one courtyard succeeds another
in quiet elegance and serenity. Among these are the Changquan Palace and the
Zhuxiu Palace, the latter being where Cixi once lived. Right now, the display in the Zhuxiu
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| Han Xizai"s Evening Banquet painted by Gu Hongzhong. |
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| The Yangxin Hall in the Forbidden City. | Palace is as Cixi had it arranged on the occasion of her fiftieth birthday.
Emerging from the Zhuxiu Palace, not far to the east, is the Yuhua Garden, or
Imperial Garden. The area of the Yuhua Garden is small and intimate; its architecture and atmosphere are completely different from the front parts of the
Palace. The pavilions and small buildings are set in the midst of pools and pine
trees, fake mountains appear to be made of grotesque stones, there are potted
garden landscapes, wisteria and bamboo. In the northeast of the Palace is also the
3Ningshou Palace Garden, where the Emperor Qianlong (Qing dynasty Gaozong Aisin-Gioro Hongli 1736-1795) cultivated his mind after returning to power.
Coming out of the Yuhua Garden and following the passage one arrives at the northern gate of the Purple Forbidden City called the Shenwu Men. Opposite this gate is Jingshan Mountain. This small hill was built from dirt that came from digging out the moat when the Ming dynasty was building the Purple Forbidden City. Standing on the top of the hill and looking out over the Palace one sees wave after wave of buildings, crest after crest of rooflines and walls.
The Purple Forbidden City is also a great treasury of art objects. Great collections of paintings, calligraphy, sculpture, inscriptions, bronzes, ceramics, textiles and embroideries, jewels, clocks, articles made of gold and silver, and so on are kept here. The collection contains around 900,000 items. The Palace Museum also has preserved around nine million historical documents and materials from the Ming and Qing dynasties. These represent an important original resource for the study of the past five hundred years of China's history. Many of the more important documents can be seen in the special exhibition hall of the Palace. |
