Forbidden City

Chinese Research-Forbidden City

Outline

1.      the introduction of the forbidden city

2.      history

3.      description(decoration)/famous building in forbidden city

4.      conclusion(influence and present)

  The Forbidden City was a Chinese imperial palace from the Ming dynasty to the Qin dynasty. It is composed of red walls and yellow glazed roof located in the heart of China, Beijing and now houses the Palace Museum. It is measured 961m long and 753m wide. It consists 980 buildings and covers 180 acres. And now there are lots of people visiting the forbidden city every day.

  Lots of people says that the Forbidden City was the political and ritual center of China for over 500 years. In 1402, the emperor Zhu Di made Beijing a secondary capital of the Ming empire, and the construction began in 1406. The construction lasted for 15 years and there are 100 thousand to million labors to work on this huge architect. The major halls were paved with the luxury golden bricks and the others made of the wood. But there is a big disaster happened after nine months construction, the three main halls collapsed down. From 1420 to 1644, the Forbidden City was the center of the Ming dynasty. By 1644, the Manchus got the supremacy in the northern China and they made the signs and name plates bilingual. So it became the center of the Qing Dynasty. After being home to twenty-four emperors, the forbidden city to be the political center in 1912 with Pu Yi. In 1925, the Palace Museum was established in the Forbidden City. But soon, the Japanese invasion of china forced that they moved the important artefacts to Nanjing and shanghai. And at the end of the 1945, the artefacts were moved back to Beijing. None of them destroyed or lost. Now it is a huge and grand museum and it remains one of the most important cultural heritage sites.

  The Forbidden City is divided into two parts: the southern part or outer court and the northern part inner court. The walls and gate in the Forbidden City are very beautiful. And there are lots of patterns and decorations in there. The walls were constructed with an earth core and surfaced with the bricks. At the southern part of the Forbidden City, there is a main Meridian Gate. It has a height of 38m and it has a concave design with five towers appearing like a flying phoenix, so it also called Five-Phoenix Tower.  There is a part in the Forbidden City called the gate of Supreme Harmony. It was the symbol of the imperial power and it was the highest structure in the empire during the Ming and Qin dynasties. Inside of it, the floor is paved with special bricks and there is a emperor position located in the center and surrounded by six gold pillars decorated with dragons. At the center of the inner court also have three halls. The most famous is the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. There are nine dragons screen in front of it and they were the official residences of the emperor and the empress. Also in the west of it, there is a hall called Mental Cultivation. It was designed to be a temporary resting hall for the emperors. All in all, the building in the forbidden city were very beautiful and very majestic. It is a masterpiece among the china architects.

  The Forbidden City has been influenced the development of Chinese architecture for two thousand years. Also it provided the inspiration for lots of art works. Now, the forbidden city is also a symbol of Beijing. Every year, lots of foreign tourists go to Beijing to visit the most magnificent architect in China.