The Forbidden City, also known as the Forbidden City, is the imperial palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. It is an unparalleled architectural masterpiece in the world today. Compared with the Palace of Versailles in France, Buckingham Palace in Britain, the White House in the United States and the Kremlin in Russia, it is called "the first of the five largest palaces in the world".
The Forbidden City was founded in 1406 and completed in 1420. This is the most magnificent palace complex in the world, with a length of 96 1 m from north to south and a width of 753 m from east to west, with a construction area of 1.55 million square meters, including more than 90 courtyards and 980 houses. First-class wood, glazed tile roof, green white stone pedestal and various splendid color paintings complement each other, showing the splendor of the Forbidden City.
Wumen Gate, Donghuamen Gate, Xihuamen Gate and Shenwumen respectively guard the southeast and northwest directions of the Forbidden City. Opposite Shenwumen, Jingshan Park, a park made of earth and stone, stands for eternal evergreen.
Inside the Forbidden City, the architectural styles of "outer courtyard" and "inner courtyard" are quite different. The outer court, centered on the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Zhonghe and the Hall of Baohe, is the place where the emperor held the court meeting, also known as the "front court"; The Forbidden City, centered on Gan Qing Palace, Jiaotai Palace and Kunning Palace, is the residence of the emperor and queen.
Second, the Forbidden City Architecture In order to answer the question of "Detailed introduction of various buildings in the Forbidden City", we specially found the article "The Forbidden City" by the famous architect Mr. Lin, which was included in Mr. Lin's book "General Knowledge of China Architecture" (published by Tiandi Publishing House on 20 19).
Lin (1904 ——1955) is a famous poet, writer and architect in modern China, and is known as "a talented woman of a generation". She is one of the designers of the Monument to the People's Heroes and the deepening plan of National Emblem of the People's Republic of China. In the early 1930s, she and her husband, Liang Sicheng, used modern scientific methods to study the ancient architecture in China and became pioneers in this academic field. Later, they achieved fruitful academic results and laid a solid scientific foundation for the study of ancient architecture in China. In literature, Lin Yisheng has written a lot, including essays, poems, novels, plays, translations and letters.
The following contents are selected from Mr. Lin's article The Forbidden City, which gives a detailed and authoritative description and explanation of the architecture of the Forbidden City-
The Forbidden City in Beijing is now the Palace Museum in the capital. The Forbidden City itself is the most important historical relic in this museum. It combines the magnificence in form, the perfection in engineering and the solemn order in layout, and becomes a group of the most outstanding and brilliant architectural monuments in the world.
The whole palace consists of "the former dynasty" and "the inner court"; Surrounded by the city wall, there is a moat under the wall, there are turrets at the four corners of the city, and there are doors on all sides: due south is the noon gate, and the gate house is magnificent, called the Five Peaks Tower; Due north is called Shenwumen; The east and west gates are called Donghuamen and Xihuamen, and the whole group is collectively called the Forbidden City. Looking across the river, every corner of the red wall, yellow tile, palace que and watchtower is magnificent and beautiful.
The three halls in the center of the former dynasty are the focus of the front of the palace, with three floors and magnificent structure, which are masterpieces of architectural modeling. To the east is Wenhua Hall, and to the west is Wuying Hall. These two groups are juxtaposed with the Taihe Gate on the east and west sides, reflecting each other left and right, forming a pattern in front of the three halls.
The Forbidden City is the place where feudal emperors and their families lived and worked. Because this is the residence of the so-called emperor, relying on many strict arrangements and formal treatment, it emphasizes the "supremacy" of this single husband. Therefore, the layout of the Forbidden City is symmetrical, symbolizing the stars in the sky and so on. For example, in the middle of the palace, Gan Qing Palace and Kunning Palace are symbols of heaven and earth. When the name of the palace is in the middle, it means "heaven and earth love Thailand". The things in front of Gan Qing Palace are called sun mirrors and moonlight, which symbolize the sun and the moon. Qin 'an Hall, the northernmost hall in the royal back garden, also has a memorial tablet of "Tian Xuan God". The Palace Museum called this part "the Middle Way". It is also a continuation of the central axis of the former palace and a section of the central axis of the whole city.
? On both sides of the "middle road" are two long lanes, each with six palaces, and every three lanes are all the way, with a north-south lane in the middle. These twelve palaces symbolize twelve stars. There are five parallel courtyards on both sides behind them, called East Fifth Courtyard and West Fifth Courtyard, which also symbolizes the meaning of stars. The zodiac is the residence of concubines, princes, etc. In the inner palace, the "last three halls" in the middle are the core of the second half of the Forbidden City. Now the museum calls the East Palace and the West Palace "East Hall" and "West Hall" respectively, and they are open in turn every day. The West Sixth Palace was rebuilt, and a temple was built between Chu Xiu and Yi Kun to form a group. Between Changchun and Taiji, a temple was added to form a group, and the pattern changed slightly. Yan Xi of the Eastern Sixth Palace participated in the western-style reconstruction of the Crystal Palace, but failed.
The buildings outside the third road are quite irregular. There are two main types: one is the two sides of the central axis, the southern end of the east-west road, and the important palace in front of the zodiac. To the west is hall of mental cultivation, which is located in the east between the "outer dynasty" and the "inner dynasty" and is the place where feudal lords actually lived daily. On the east side of the central axis, it is roughly symmetrical with Zhai Gong and Fengxian Hall. The relationship between these two groups and Gan Qing Palace is equivalent to the relationship between Wenhua Hall, Wuying Hall and Taihe Hall. The other is a palace with a larger core and periphery than the zodiac. These palaces were built for the mother of feudal lords to live in. Each group has a front hall, a back bedroom, a surrounding porch, an annex hall and a palace gate. There are palaces such as Cining, Shou Kang and Shou 'an in the west. Among them, there is a group of Buddhist temples-Yuhua Pavilion, which is large in scale. It is always called "Waixi Road". The "Waidong Road" in the east is only a group of Ningshou Palace, which runs directly from north to south and has a huge scope. It was originally the home of Michelle Ye (Kangxi)' s mother, and later Li Hong (Qianlong) handed over the political power to his son. I live here after retirement. I have built many complex and beautiful pavilions and gardens, so it is called "Qianlong Garden". It is the most special and luxurious architectural group outside the back core of the Forbidden City, and it is a masterpiece of increasingly complex court interests in the Qing Dynasty.
Although there are many buildings behind the Forbidden City, the layout is still orderly. In addition to the central axis, buildings on the east and west sides are also based on several north-south axes. The street outside the building composed of various axes forms a slender north-south passage. The southern end of the main Dongyi Long Street and Yi Xi Long Street are the "left inner gate" and "right inner gate" leading to the outer court, which are the main traffic routes between the imperial court and the former court.
In addition to these "palaces" and "temples", there are many service units in the Forbidden City, such as the court, the chef, various warehouses and guards on duty. However, the offices of famous prime ministers, such as the "South Study Room" and the "Military Department", are actually just a few porches beside the Gan Qing Gate. The army might as well go to a row of stables in the upper house! The feudal emperor brutally drove the working people to build palaces for him, pampered and enjoyed everything, and even the military and political ministers who treated him were slaves. This fact can be reflected in the architecture and layout of the Forbidden City. All the buildings in the Forbidden City are the richest historical materials.