Forbidden City
The Forbidden City is a palace complex located in Beijing, the capital of China. For nearly five hundred years, from the Ming dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty, it was the official residence of China's emperors and their court, as well as the ceremonial and political center of the Chinese government. Today it is a tourist attraction that houses the Palace Museum.
Built between 1406 and 1420 by order of the Yongle Emperor, the current complex consists of 980 buildings and covers an area of 72 hectares. The set exemplifies the traditional palace architecture of China and has influenced the cultural and architectural development of East Asia and other parts of the world, for which the Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987. In addition, it is considered by the Unesco as the largest set of ancient wooden structures in the world.
Since 1925, the Forbidden City has been managed by the Palace Museum, which has an extensive collection of works of art and objects that belonged to the imperial collections of the Ming and Qing dynasties. Part of the old museum collection is now in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, as both museums belonged to the same institution and were divided after the Chinese Civil War.
Name
The common name in Spanish, «The Forbidden City», is a translation of the Chinese name Zijin Cheng (in Chinese,,に; in pinyin, ZALESjìnchéngliterally "Prohibited Purple City"; in manchu, 
Dabkūri dorgi hotonliterally "Ancient inner city". The name “Zijin Cheng» is a denomination with meaning in many levels: Zi, or "purpura", refers to the Polar Star, which in ancient China was called Star Ziwei, and in Chinese astrology was the house of the Celestial Emperor. The surrounding heavenly region, the Recinto Ziwei (discovering), it was the kingdom of the Celestial Emperor and his family. The Forbidden City, as a residence of the earthly emperor, was its earthly counterpart. Jin, or “Prohibited”, referred to the fact that no one could enter or leave the palace without the emperor’s permission. Cheng means "walled city". Today, the place is commonly called in Chinese as Gùgōng (plusing), which means "Old Palace". The museum that houses the palatial ensemble is known as the "Museum of the Palace" (in Chinese: 故ののに。 Gugong Bówùyùan).
History
The Forbidden City was located in the Imperial City during the Yuan Dynasty, founded by the Mongols. After the establishment of the Ming dynasty, the Hongwu Emperor moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered the Yuan palaces to be burned. When his son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he reestablished his capital in Beijing and there began construction of what would become the Forbidden City in 1406. Construction took fifteen years, required the participation of more than one million workers and used materials such as whole logs of the prized phoebe zhennan (Chinese: 楠木; pinyin: nánmù) wood, sourced from the jungles of southwestern China, and large blocks of marble quarried near Beijing. The floors of the main halls were paved with "golden bricks" (Chinese: 金砖; pinyin: jīnzhuān), which were specially fired in Suzhou kilns.
From 1420 to 1644 the Forbidden City was the court of the Ming dynasty, until in April 1644 it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty. the combined armies of the former Ming general Wu Sangui (吳三桂） and Manchu forces, burning down parts of the Forbidden City before leaving. By October the Manchus had achieved supremacy in North China and held a ceremony in the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Shunzhi Emperor ruler of all China under the Qing dynasty. The Qing rulers changed the names of some of the City's major buildings, emphasizing "Harmony" instead of "Supremacy", and put up bilingual plaques in Chinese and Manchu.
In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and held it until the end of the war. In 1900 the Dowager Empress Cixi fled the Forbidden City during the uprising of the Boxers, leaving it to be occupied by forces from the treaty countries until the following year.
After having been home to twenty-four emperors—fourteen from the Ming dynasty and ten from the Qing dynasty—the Forbidden City ceased to be China's political center in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, China's last emperor. Under an agreement with the new ROC government, Puyi resided in the inner courtyard, while the outer courtyard was for public use, until he was expelled after a coup in 1924. A year later, the Palace Museum in the Forbidden City. In 1933 the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of the national treasures from the Forbidden City, and although part of the collection was returned at the end of World War II, other was evacuated to Taiwan in 1947 under Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese civil war. This relatively small but high-quality collection remained in storage until 1965, when it returned to public display as the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, revolutionary zeal led to the some damage to the Forbidden City. However, during the Cultural Revolution further destruction was prevented by Prime Minister Zhou Enlai ordering an army battalion to guard it.
The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO under the name "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties", due to its important role in the development of Chinese culture and architecture. It is currently managed by the Palace Museum, which is undertaking a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore all the buildings to their pre-1912 state. In recent years, the presence of commercial enterprises in the Forbidden City has caused controversy, as is the case of the Starbucks chain store, which opened in 2000 and had to close on July 13, 2007 due to various complaints. The Chinese media also echoed in 2006 news of a couple of souvenir shops refusing to admit Chinese citizens in order to keep prices high for foreign tourists.
Description
- - - Approximate division between the courtyards of the interior (north) and exterior (south).
The Forbidden City is the largest surviving palace complex in the world, covering 72 hectares. It is rectangular in shape, measuring 961 meters from north to south and 753 meters from east to west, and currently contains 980 buildings with 9,999 rooms. The Forbidden City was designed to be the center of the old walled city of Beijing and is inserted within a larger walled area called the Imperial City, which in turn is within the Inner City, which borders the Outer City on the south..
The Forbidden City continues to be important in the urban layout of the city of Beijing, as its central north-south axis is the central axis of the Chinese capital. This axis extends south through Tian'anmen Gate to Tian'anmen Square, the ceremonial center of the People's Republic of China, and to Yongdingmen Gate. To the north it reaches Jingshan Park and the Gulou and Zhonglou towers. This axis is not exactly aligned from north to south, deviating by slightly more than two degrees, and researchers now believe that it was drawn in the Yuan dynasty to align with Xanadu, the other capital of his empire.
Walls and doors
The Forbidden City is surrounded by a wall 7.9 meters high and a water-filled moat 6 meters deep by 52 m wide. The walls are 8.6 m wide at their base and taper up to 6.6 m high. These walls served both as defensive walls and retaining walls of the City and were built with a rammed earth core covered with three layers of specially fired bricks on both sides and joined with mortar.
The predominance of color in the walls coming from the bricks of the city takes place from its meaning; the color red 红 (hóng) in oriental culture is attributed to good fortune, what is believed to use this color is called "starting on the right foot".
Although its use is loaded with symbolism linked to socialist ideology; when one becomes so red, one is considered an example to be by the society in the Culture of China. Considering the function to be used in the forbidden city, the use of this reddish material is considered a show of strength, permanence and a construction to contemplate and a cultural example.
There is a tower at each of its four corners (E), all surmounted by complex roofs featuring seventy-two pinnacles, in imitation of how Prince Teng's Pavilion and Prince Teng's Pavilion are depicted in Song Dynasty paintings. of the Yellow Crane. These towers are the most visible part of the City and are the protagonists of numerous legends. One of them says that the craftsmen were unable to rebuild one of the towers after it was dismantled for restoration during the Qing dynasty, and could only be remade by the intervention of the immortal carpenter Lu Ban.
The wall has four gates, one on each canvas. The main one is the South Gate (A), to the north the Gate of Divine Harmony (B) opens, facing Jingshan Park. Those to the east and west are called the Glorious Gate of the West (C) and the Glorious Gate of the East (D). All these entrances are closed by double doors decorated with rows of nine by nine golden nails, with the exception of the eastern door, which only has eight rows of nails.
The southern access, the main one, is flanked by two wings that come forward closing three sides of the quadrangular square (Wumen Square) that opens before it. The access has five doors, the central one of which is part of the Imperial Way, a cobbled path that forms the central axis of the Forbidden City and Beijing itself, leading from the Gate of China in the south to Jingshan in the north. Only the emperor could walk or ride on the Imperial Way, with the exception of the empress on her wedding day and the successful students on her Imperial Exam day.
Tower of one of the corners of the Forbidden City.
Northwest corner tower.
The Gate of Divine Harmony, the northern access. The lower poster reads "Museum of the Palace" (γ margin.)
The Puerta Gloriosa del Este in renovation as part of the 16-year restoration process.
Outdoor patio
Traditionally the Forbidden City is divided into two zones: the Outer Court (外朝) or Front Court (前朝) includes the southern sections and was used for ceremonial purposes; the Inner Court (内廷) or Rear Palace (后宫) houses the northernmost sections and was the residence of the emperor and his family, and the place of daily affairs of state. A red line marks the approximate division between these two areas on the map to the right. Likewise, the Forbidden City was drawn with three vertical axes, the most important of which is the north-south, where the most important buildings are located.
Entering through the South Gate we find a large plaza crossed by the Agua Dorada River, which has five bridges. At the far end of the plaza is the Gate of Supreme Harmony (F), behind which stands the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Three-tiered white marble terraces rise from the plaza, topped with three buildings, the center of the palace complex: from south to north, the Hall of Supreme Harmony (太和殿), the Hall of Central Harmony (中和殿) and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (保和殿).
The Hall of Supreme Harmony (G) is the largest, as it reaches a height of thirty meters above the level of the plaza that surrounds it, as well as being the ceremonial center of imperial power and the largest wooden structure largest in all of China. It is nine bays wide and five stories high, the numbers nine and five being symbolically connected to the majesty of the emperor. Inserted into a cell in the center of the hall is an ornately decorated throne with a coiled dragon whose wings metal balls are born from the jaws as a chandelier, called "Xuanyuan Mirror". In the Ming dynasty the emperor had his court here to deal with state affairs, although during the Qing dynasty, when more state meetings were held, his The location was moved to a less ceremonious location and the Hall of Supreme Harmony was reserved for more solemn purposes such as coronations, investitures, and imperial weddings.
The Hall of Central Harmony is smaller, with a square plan, and was used by the emperor to prepare the ceremonies and rest before and during their performance. Behind him, in the Hall of the Preservation of Harmony, they rehearsed ceremonies and was also the site of the final stage of the Imperial Examination. All three halls feature Imperial thrones, though the largest and most elaborate of all is the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
In the center of the ramps that lead to the terraces on the north and south sides there are ceremonial ramps, part of the Via Imperial, decorated with ornate and symbolic bas-reliefs. The north ramp, behind the Hall of the Preservation of Harmony, is carved from a single piece of stone 16.5 meters long, 3 m wide, 1.7 m thick and weighs two hundred tons, making it makes it the largest carving in all of China. XX when secular deterioration made their juncture more visible.
To the southwest and southeast of the Outer Court are the Halls of Military Eminence (H) and Literary Glory (J). The first was used on various occasions by the emperor to receive his ministers and hold courts, and later used to house the palace's own printing press. The second was reserved for ceremonial readings by the reputed Confucianist scholars and in later periods was the office of the Grand Secretariat. A copy of the Siku Quanshu, the largest collection of books in Chinese history, was also stored here. To the northeast are the Three South Palaces (南三所) (K), the residence of the crown prince.
The River of Golden Water.
Assembly of the Supreme Harmony Hall.
The throne of the Supreme Harmony Hall.
The Central Harmony Hall (First) and the Preservation of Harmony Hall.
Detail of a door.
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Inner courtyard
The Inner Court is separated from the Outer Court by a rectangular plaza drawn perpendicular to the main axis of the Forbidden City. It was the home of the emperor and his family, and in the Qing dynasty the emperors lived and worked there exclusively, leaving the Outer Court solely for ceremonial purposes.
In the center of the inner courtyard is another set of three rooms (L). From the south, they are the Palace of Heavenly Purity (乾清宮), the Hall of Union, and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Smaller than the halls of the Outer Court, they were the official residence of the emperor and empress. The emperor, representing Yang and the Heavens, occupied the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The Empress, who represented Yin and Earth, resided in the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Among them was the Hall of Union, where Yin and Yang mix to produce harmony.
The Palace of Heavenly Purity is a building with two eaves built on a single-level marble terrace and is connected to the Gate of Heavenly Purity to the south by an elevated walkway. In the Ming dynasty it was the residence of the emperor, but after the Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing dynasty, the sovereign resided in the smaller Hall of Mental Cultivation, located to the west, out of respect for the memory of the Kangxi Emperor. the Heavenly Purity, which features a throne fixed to the ceiling and decorated with another coiled dragon, later became the emperor's audience hall. Above the throne hangs a banner reading "Justice and Honor" (Chinese: 正大光明; pinyin: zhèngdàguāngmíng).
The Palace of Earthly Tranquility (坤宁宫) is also a covered building with two eaves, nine bays wide and three stories high. During the Ming dynasty it was the residence of the empress, while in the Qing a large part of the palace was converted for shamanistic worship by the new Manchu rulers. From the reign of the Yongzheng Emperor the empress moved into the Palace, although two rooms in the Palace of Earthly Tranquility were kept for use on the emperor's wedding night.
Between these two palaces is the Salón de la Unión, with a square floor plan and a pyramidal roof. The twenty-five Imperial Seals of the Qing Dynasty, as well as other ceremonial objects, are stored here. Behind these three rooms is the Imperial Garden (M). Relatively small and compact in layout, this garden nonetheless contains various displays of elaborate landscaping. To the north of the garden is the Gate of Divine Harmony, the north gate of the palace. Distributed to the east and west of the three main halls are a series of secondary courtyards and smaller palaces where the emperor's sons and concubines lived.
Directly to the west is the Hall of Mental Cultivation (N), which was originally a minor palace but became the de facto residence and office of the emperor from Yongzheng. In the last decades of the Qing dynasty, the empresses dowager, including Cixi, held courts in the eastern part of the hall. Situated around the Hall of Mental Cultivation are the offices of the Grand Council and other key government bodies.
The northeast section of the Inner Court is occupied by the Palace of Tranquil Longevity (宁寿宫) (O), a complex built by the Qianlong Emperor in anticipation of his retirement. It reflects the updating of the Forbidden City and features an inner and outer courtyard, as well as gardens and temples. The entrance to the Palace of Tranquil Longevity is marked by a large tiled wall depicting nine dragons. This section of the Forbidden City is being restored thanks to a collaboration between the Palace Museum and the World Monuments Fund, a project long-term project that is expected to end in 2017.
Throne of the Palace of Heavenly Purity.
Inside the Mental Cultivation Hall.
The Wall of the Nine Dragons at the Palace of Longevity Quiet.
A golden guardian lion in front of the Palace of Longevity Quiet.
Religion
Religion was an important part of imperial court life. In the Qing dynasty the Palace of Earthly Tranquility became a venue for Manchu shamanistic ceremonies. At the same time, the native Chinese Taoist religion continued to play an important role throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, and there were two Taoist temples for its worship, one in the imperial garden and one in the central area of the inner courtyard. Important religion in the palace of the Qing dynasty was Buddhism. Several temples and sanctuaries were created in the inner courtyard, including that of Tibetan Buddhism or Lamaism. Buddhist iconography also proliferated in the interior decoration of many buildings, of which the Pavilion of the Rain of Flowers is a good example, since it contains numerous Buddhist statues, icons and mandalas distributed according to ritual purposes.
Surroundings
The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. To the north is Jingshan Park, an artificial hill created with earth extracted from the moat and nearby lakes. To the west is Zhongnanhai, an ancient garden around two connected lakes that today serves as the Party headquarters Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. To the northwest, Beihai Park borders, a very popular place among Beijingers also centered by a lake connected to the two to the south.
In the south of the Forbidden City there are two important shrines, the Imperial Family Shrine (Chinese: 太庙, pinyin: Tàimiào) and the Imperial State Shrine (Chinese: 太 社稷, pinyin: Tàishèjì), where the emperor could venerate the spirits of his ancestors and the spirit of the nation, respectively. Today they are the Cultural Hall of the Working People of Beijing and Zhongshan Park, the latter in commemoration of Sun Yat-sen. Also to the south are two nearby and identical gates arranged in the central axis that leads to the main entrance of the City: the Vertical Gate (Chinese: 端 门, pinyin: Duanmen) and the most famous Tian'anmen Gate, decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in its center and banners on both sides which read "Long live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the great unity of the peoples of the world". The Tian'anmen Gate connects the Forbidden City with the modern and symbolic center of the Chinese state, Tian'anmen Square.
Although urban development is now strictly controlled around the Forbidden City, over the past century rampant demolitions and reconstruction, sometimes politically motivated, have changed the character of the areas surrounding the palace complex. Since 2000 the Beijing municipal government has worked to prevent government and military institutions from occupying some historic buildings, and has established a park around the remaining parts of the Imperial City wall. In 2004 an ordinance regarding the height of buildings and restrictions on urban planning was renewed to establish the area of the Imperial City and the north of the City as an isolation zone for the Forbidden City. One year later the City Imperial and Beihai (as part of the Summer Palace extension) were listed for future World Heritage Sites in Beijing.
Symbolism
During the Shang, Tang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, the emperors selected colors as symbols, based on the theory of the five elements, which corresponded to the colors black, red, blue-green, white and yellow (the colors of the nature).
The design of the Forbidden City, from its general plan to the smallest detail, was meticulously devised to reflect philosophical and religious principles, and above all as a symbol of the majesty of imperial power. Some notable examples of symbolic design are:
- The yellow is the color of the emperor. For this reason, almost all the roofs of the Forbidden City have glazed yellow tiles, and there are only two exceptions: the library in the Pavilion of the Literary Depth (see),), which has black tiles because that color is associated with water and therefore prevent fires, and the residences of the Crown Prince, which have green tiles because that color is associated with wood and, therefore, growth.
Yellow roofs in the forbidden city of Beijing, China
- The main halls of the inner and outer courtyards are all arranged in groups of three, the form of the Qian trigram that represents Heaven. On the other hand, the residences of the inner courtyard are grouped six in six, the form of the Kun trigram representing the Earth.
- The roof crevices are decorated with statue lines led by a man riding a phoenix bird and followed by an imperial dragon. The number of these statues represents the status of the building, as a secondary building has three or five. The Supreme Harmony Hall has ten, the only building in the whole country to which this was allowed in imperial times. As a result, its tenth statue, called "Hangshi" or "décima", (in Chinese: Урарик, pinyin: Hángshí) is also unique in the Forbidden City.
- The design of buildings respects the old customs established in the Classic Rites, so the ancestral temples are facing the palace, the storage areas on the front of the complex and the residential areas on the back.
- After the Ming Dynasty their descendants were allowed to use the red color for their homes and the yellow color on their roofs. But ordinary people were awarded for their house blue bricks or tiles, or white walls with black roofs.
Collections
The Palace Museum's collections are based on the Qing imperial collection. According to the results of a 1925 audit, the Forbidden City stored 1.17 million objects. In addition, the imperial libraries housed one of the largest collections of ancient books and miscellaneous documents in the entire country, including government papers from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Since 1933, the threat of the Japanese invasion forced the evacuation of the most important parts of the Museum's collection. After the end of World War II in 1945 this collection was returned to Nanking, but with the victory of the communists in the subsequent Chinese Civil War in 1949, the Nationalist government decided to send a selection from this collection to the island of Taiwan. Of the 13,427 boxes of objects evacuated, 2,972 are currently in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Nearly 10,000 boxes were returned to Beijing, but 2,221 are still in storage today under the Nanjing Museum's charge. After 1949 the Museum carried out a new audit, as well as an exhaustive search of the Forbidden City, uncovering a significant number of artifacts.. In addition, the government took pieces from other museums around the country to replenish the collection of the National Palace Museum, which also bought some and received private donations.
Today, the Palace Museum has more than a million unique and priceless works of art in its permanent collection, including paintings, ceramics, inscriptions, bronze objects and court documents. According to an inventory of the collection carried out between 2004 and 2010, the Palace Museum has a total of 1,807,558 objects, of which 1,684,490 are pieces designated as nationally protected "valuable cultural relics".
- Ceramics
The Palace Museum has 340,000 pieces of ceramics and porcelain, including the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty imperial collections, as well as pieces commissioned by the palace and sometimes by the emperor personally. The Palace Museum also has around 320,000 pieces of porcelain from the imperial collection. The rest is almost all stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Nanjing Museum.
- Paintings
The Palace Museum has nearly 50,000 paintings. Of these, more than four hundred date from before the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), making it the largest collection of its kind in China. The collection is based on the palace collection of the Ming and Qing dynasties.. The personal interest of emperors like Qianlong led to the palace housing one of the most important collections of paintings in Chinese history. However, a significant part of this collection was lost over the years. After his abdication, Puyi removed many paintings from the palace, which were lost or destroyed, and in 1948 many objects were brought to Taiwan. The collection has subsequently been completed through donations, purchases and transfers from other museums.
- Bronze objects
The Palace Museum's collection of bronzes dates back to the early Shang dynasty. Of the nearly 10,000 pieces that make it up, 1,600 are dated to before the Qin period (221 BC). An important part of this collection are bronze ceremonial objects from the imperial court.
- Watches
The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of 18th and 19th century mechanical clocks in the world, with more than a thousand pieces, both Chinese and made abroad. The Chinese watches were made in the workshops of the palace itself, in Canton or Suzhou, while the foreign ones come from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Switzerland or Japan, although the majority are British.
- Jade
Jade has a unique place in Chinese culture. The museum's collection, mostly drawn from the imperial collection, includes some 30,000 pieces. The collection of pre-Yuan Dynasty works includes several world-famous pieces and artifacts from recent archaeological excavations. The oldest date from the Neolithic, while those of the Ming and Qing dynasties were for palace use, in some cases tributes from all over the empire and beyond.
- Palace objects
In addition to works of art, a large part of the museum's collection consists of pieces from the imperial court, including items used by the imperial family and the palace in daily life, as well as various ceremonial and bureaucratic objects important for government administration. This extensive collection illustrates the daily life and ceremonial protocols of the imperial era.
Additional bibliography
- Aisin-Gioro, Puyi (1964). From Emperor to citizen: the autobiography of Aisin-Gioro Pu Yi. Beijing: Foreign Language Press. ISBN 0-192-82099-0.
- Huang, Ray (1981). 1587, A Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-02518-1.
- Yang, Xiagui; Li, Shaobai (photographs); Chen, Huang (translation) (2003). The Invisible Palace. Beijing: Foreign Language Press. ISBN 7-119-03432-4.
- Yu, Zhuoyun (1984). Palaces of the Forbidden City. New York: Viking. ISBN 0-670-53721-7.
- Barme, Geremie R. (2008). The Forbidden City. Profile Books. 251 pages. ISBN 9780674027794.
- Cotterell, Arthur (2007). The Imperial Capitals of China – An Inside View of the Celestial Empire. London: Pimlico. 304 pages. ISBN 9781845950095.
- Ho; Bronson (2004). Splendors of China's Forbidden City. London: Merrell Publishers. ISBN 1-85894-258-6.
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