THE PALACE COMPLEX
The Forbidden City conforms to all the rules of feng shui ("wind and water"), the “science" by which buildings must be laid out if the gods are to be appeased and good fortune follow. The great halls — imperial apartments, harem, lodgings for courtiers, reception rooms — are arranged in two rows on either side of a grand axis, five miles long, that runs north to south through Beijing. They are grouped in eight courtyards and gilded, painted in rich reds, greens, yellows, and blues, beneath swooping roofs animated with dragons, and covered in glazed tiles, which make a colorful and dramatic sight. The timber halls are raised on terraces of up to 26 feet and set behind impressive marble balustrades. Inside, their ceilings are richly carved and gilded, held up by columns supporting extremely complex capitals or brackets that are supreme examples of the carpenters' art. The Chinese did not lack stone or other building materials lack to construct arches vaults. They simply chose not to, delighting in timber and, in the process, chopping down much of the ancient forests that once covered what plains.
The Forbidden City conforms to all the rules of feng shui ("wind and water"), the “science" by which buildings must be laid out if the gods are to be appeased and good fortune follow. The great halls — imperial apartments, harem, lodgings for courtiers, reception rooms — are arranged in two rows on either side of a grand axis, five miles long, that runs north to south through Beijing. They are grouped in eight courtyards and gilded, painted in rich reds, greens, yellows, and blues, beneath swooping roofs animated with dragons, and covered in glazed tiles, which make a colorful and dramatic sight. The timber halls are raised on terraces of up to 26 feet and set behind impressive marble balustrades. Inside, their ceilings are richly carved and gilded, held up by columns supporting extremely complex capitals or brackets that are supreme examples of the carpenters' art. The Chinese did not lack stone or other building materials lack to construct arches vaults. They simply chose not to, delighting in timber and, in the process, chopping down much of the ancient forests that once covered what plains.
To the northwest of the city, later emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties created the delightful Summer Palace (from 1750), reports of which helped to fuel a passion for Chinese decoration — chinoiserie — in Europe at the time. The Summer Palace with its pleasure pavilions and intricate gardens enclosed 7,165 acres, three-quarters of this water. The various parts of this dreamy escape from the Forbidden City were linked by a gloriously decorated gallery that stretches 2,493 feet. All the buildings, as with those of the Forbidden City, were designed to be pretty much earthquake-proof.
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Common sense was matched in imperial Chinese society by a commitment to ancient ritual. The gods and ancestors must be kept happy. In Beijing they were surely happy looking down on the perfect form of the Hall of Prayer at the Tiantan Shrine, a vast religious complex covering 691 acres built during the Ming and Qing dynasties. This circular wooden prayer hall is 105 feet high and 78 feet in diameter. It is gloriously colorful, the deep blue glazed tiled roofs spinning out from the hub of the tower with its red doors, columns, and window frames and its dark green beams. This lovely structure stands on top of three circular platforms surrounded by white marble balustrades. The ball on top of the concave, conical roof is gold-plated. Visitors now, as those centuries ago, are struck by the huge spaces in which these Chinese buildings are set and the extent to which everything appears to be part of a hugely grand plan, each element of a particular building related to the city or to the religious or palace complex itself. China's intense national homogeneity is surely reflected in the architecture of its emperors.
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