The World Travel

At the Beijing center, there is an architectural group in garish yellow color, standing solemnly and mysteriously - that is The Forbidden City. Gu Gong in Beijing is precious gem in palace architecture of China. It is the largest surviving wooden structure in the world.

Gu Gong was built by Zhu Di – the Emperor of the second generation of Ming Dynasty - in 1406 and it took 14 years to finish. In nearly 500-year history, until the Qing court was subverted, 24 Emperors had lived and controlled State affairs here. Huge Scale, beautiful style, colorful architecture of Gu Gong are arranged in rare kind in the world. The Forbidden City is located in an area of 20,000 square meters. It is a rectangle nearly 1000 meters from north to south and 800 meters from east to west. The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 10 -meter high city wall and a six-meter deep, 52-metre wide moat.

Gu Gong was built according to the order of ethical behavior, political norm and moral spirit of many feudal dynasties of China. The layout, scale, shape, decorative color and display of Gu Gong show the supreme power and stringent level. Three huge halls that are most attractive visitors are the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony, and the Hall of Preserving Harmony. They are the place where Emperors executes his power of domination and where to hold formal ceremonies. The Hall of Supreme Harmony is the most magnificent architecture in Gu Gong. On the South Square of 30,000 square meters in width, the Hall of Supreme Harmony was built on white stairs, 8 meters in height. The height of the Hall is nearly 40 m. It is the highest architecture in the Forbidden City. In Chinese Culture, Dragon is typical for the king’s power. The king is regarded as "descended from Dragon - the son of heaven". The objects decorated in The Hall of Supreme Harmony are using multiple images of Dragon. The above and the below have nearly 13,000 images of dragon.

The Architecture of Gu Gong still has many things to research. Palaces in Gu Gong are grandiose and extend endlessly. As legend, it has 9,999 rooms. The Ancient people believed that the house of the God – the king of heaven – had 10, 000 rooms. The emperor was the son of heaven, he had to be sparing with himself, so the quantity of rooms in Gu Gong were less than heaven. The grandiose Architecture of Gu Gong was quintessence of intelligence of Chinese. It is not grandiose in scale but also in details. Each object used to decorate on the roof, door, and wall is imaginative marvelously. The ground of white stone of Hall of Supreme Harmony made itself bulky more bulky and imposing.

Gu Gong is a wooden architectural group. Architects of many generations of king racked their brain to invent the method of preventing fire. In Gu Gong there are four ranges of houses made of stone inside. In outside they look like houses, but actually they are fire-preventing walls. In the campus of Gu Gong, there are 308 huge cauldrons in total using to contain water for preventing fire. Until winter, they light fire continuously to keep the water not be frozen. Gu Gong is the ancient architecture group that is reserved the most perfectly and largest in the world today. According to history books recorded, Ming Dynasty mobilized hundreds of thousands of various types of workers during the construction. The materials were collected from all over the country, including from the province Yunnan that is far from Beijing thousands of miles.

As being a Royal Palace, Gu Gong is storing extremely many rare cultural objects. According to statistics, more than millions of cultural objects stored, making up 1/6 the total cultural objects of the whole China, of which there are many national precious things that are incomparable. In the years of 80 of the previous century, Chinese government built for more than 100 underground warehouses, most of cultural objects are being kept in this “underground palace” now.

Gu Gong has become the symbol of Chinese culture. Architects in domestic and oversea recognize that, ̣the design and architecture of Beijing Gu Gong is a masterpiece that nothing can compare. It is the criteria of long-standing cultural tradition of China. It shows the excellent achievement of architecture of Chinese workers from over 500 years ago. Gu Gong has spent more than 580 years since construction; a majority of architecture in Gu Gong is becoming old. Recently, the visitors visit Gu Gong more and more crowdedly. It is up to 10 millions of participations. To keep Gu Gong better, from 2003, Chinese government began restoring partially. This restoration will continue in 20years until finishing.

(Source: Vnexpress)