CHAPTER 13
The Chinese Imperial City and Its Architecture,
Ming and Qing
Beijing has been called the greatest city on earth and the most
important city in China. The claims reflect the almost univer-
sal recognition of the city since the time of Marco Polo and the
fact that more has been written about Beijing than about any
other Chinese city. Ripley’s Believe It or Not claimed that the
Great Wall to its north could be seen from outer space long
before satellite photographs confirmed what every Chinese
first-grader knows: the walls of the Ming-Qing capital are a
vertical rectangle juxtaposed above a horizontal rectangle (fig-
ure 13.1).1 Together with Xi’an, Beijing is the cannot-be-missed
city of any tourist itinerary, but unlike Xi’an, it is easy to choose
the two monuments that cannot be missed: the walled city and
the Great Wall to its north.
Beijing is not China’s oldest walled city, but it is one of the
few with evidence of habitation in ca. 750,000 BP: Peking Man
(Homo erectus pekinensis) was identified at Zhoukoudian in
the 1920s. The oldest city remains date to the Shang dynasty;
the state of Yan was built there in the Warring States period
(see figure 2.3b). The greatness and importance of Beijing are
best understood in the context of the three millennia of capital
city building that preceded it, including the capitals of Liao
and Jin and Yuan, which became part of it (see figure 11.6).
Upon the fall of the Yuan dynasty, Beijing’s continuous history
as a capital was lost for thirty years.
Imperial Nanjing
Although the remnant of the Mongol empire fled north to
Yingchang in Inner Mongolia where it would endure for
another twenty years as the Northern Yuan dynasty (1368–
1388), Mongol loyalties did not disappear in China with the
fall of Yuan rule.2 The first emperor of the Ming dynasty, the
Hongwu emperor (hereafter referred to as Hongwu), born Zhu
Yuanzhang (1328–1398), initially planned three capitals, all in
the South, the part of China from which he and resistance to
the Mongols had risen. The first was in Fengyang, the intended
central capital (Zhongdu), near his birthplace in Anhui
province. It was a squarish city of three concentric walls, the
innermost being 3,072 meters in perimeter. Each wall face had
three gates in the manner of the “Kaogongji” prescription.
The approach to the second wall was via a Thousand-pace
Corridor (qianbulang), a feature that had been implemented
at the Yuan capital Dadu. Also like Dadu, Fengyang was at
the confluence of waterways. The second capital was to be the
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 220
northern capital, at the location of the Northern Song capital
that by the Ming dynasty had been renamed Kaifeng. Nanjing
would be third.
Construction in Fengyang was abandoned in 1375, where-
upon Nanjing, location of the capitals of the Wu kingdom,
Southern Dynasties, and Southern Tang of the Ten Kingdoms,
became the focus of Hongwu’s patronage. Architecture from
those periods remained, as it does today (see figures 5.3, 5.4,
7.9).3 The emperor’s plan was ambitious. A wall of approxi-
mately 37 kilometers enclosed his new city, with the capitals
of the Southern Dynasties and Southern Tang inside those
walls. Parts of the Southern Dynasties and Ming walls survive
(figure 13.2). This ability to absorb old architecture amid mod-
ernization would characterize Nanjing’s relationship with its
past in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. As we shall
see, it was not achieved in Beijing. Hongwu built a palace-city
with an imperial-city around it in the east of his new city with
bell and drum towers roughly centered between the eastern
and western walls, altars for imperial sacrifices, and his tomb
to the north. Buildings from his palace were excavated in the
early twenty-first century and are the focus of a tourist park.
Hongwu’s eldest son predeceased him, whereupon that son’s
oldest son became his successor. The young emperor lost the
throne to his uncle and did not receive burial in the tomb com-
plex built by his grandfather.
Ming Imperial Tombs
Before beginning work on his tomb, Hongwu reburied his
parents and grandparents befitting royalty. The new tomb for
his parents was about 5 meters south of the walls of Fengyang.
Pieces of statuary from spirit paths as well as city wall remain
today.4 In the 1380s Hongwu constructed the new tomb for his
grandparents on the bank of Lake Hongze in Jiangsu. There,
too, much of the spirit path remains.
The tomb of Hongwu and his wife is known as Xiaoling, a
name chosen because the character xiao was part of his wife’s
name.5 Lacking the outer wall that enclosed Tang and Song
imperial tombs, Hongwu’s tomb begins at an archway where
those about to proceed along the spirit path are told to dis-
mount. Two kilometers behind is Red Gate (Hongmen). The
863-meter spirit path follows, bending sharply to elude evil
spirits, who were believed to travel in straight lines. The path
bends again where the sculptures of the pairs of standing and
kneeling animals transition to a pair of octagonal columns
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 The Chinese Imperial City
13.1. Plan of late-Ming-Qing Beijing
with major imperial structures
labeled and showing use of modules
followed by pairs of military and civil officials (figure 13.3).
Next is Dragon [and] Phoenix Gate, named for two of China’s
most auspicious animals. Two more bends lead to the hall for
sacrifices to the deceased ruler that is the focus of a quadri-
lateral courtyard, here representing a square, ever a symbol of
earth, and the circular mound behind it, beneath which the
emperor and empress are buried, representing heaven. The
change from a truncated pyramid to a semispherical mound
is one of the distinguishing features of Ming imperial tombs.
This kind of mound would cover royal burials for the rest of
Chinese imperial history. The Red Gate, spirit path, sacrificial
hall, as well as a pavilion containing a marble stele glorifying
the deeds of the emperor would continue as well.
Other sons and grandsons of Hongwu as well as later Ming
royalty had palaces and tombs across China.6 One of the
best-preserved princely tombs is in Guilin, Guangxi province.
Another, in Hubei, belongs to Prince Liangzhuang.7 Tombs of
non-Chinese royalty, including Muslim kings and King Sejong
of Korea, similarly had spirit paths leading to circular mounds
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 221
because they were entitled as Ming princes.8 As had been the
practice in the Song dynasty, high-ranking officials also could
be awarded spirit paths and other identifiers of royal bur-
ial. Xu Da (1332–1385), who aided Hongwu in overthrowing
the Mongols and is rumored to have been poisoned by the
emperor, received official burial with a spirit path in Nanjing.9
Two Imperial Monasteries
Several buildings in Nanjing have direct ties to Hongwu. In
1381 Linggu Monastery was moved to make more space for the
imperial mausoleum. During the rebuilding, a structure known
as a beamless hall (wuliangdian), which had come into vogue in
the late Yuan dynasty, was constructed. As the name indicates,
no wooden beams are used. In fact, no wooden pieces are used.
A beamless hall is entirely, or almost entirely, brick, with a roof
that may be of ceramic tile. Inside it employs the technology
used for millennia prior to the Ming dynasty for subterranean
brick tombs, particularly vaulting. About a dozen beamless
halls are known today.10
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 The Chinese Imperial City
13.4. Beamless Hall, Linggu
Monastery, Nanjing, 1381
The beamless hall of Linggu Monastery is 53.3 meters across
the front and 37.35 meters in depth and has a double-eave,
hip-gable roof (figure 13.4). A platform extends across the
front, a ramp is at the back, and there are three front and
back entries with two windows in the front and three on each
side. With imitation bracket sets across the front and sides, as
well as the doors and windows, a five-by-three-bay structure
is presented. Three interior arches are constructed along the
shorter dimension. It is both the oldest and largest beamless
hall in China. Linggusi was designated one of the three great
monasteries of Nanjing.
Bao’en Monastery was the second of the great monasteries.11
It is the location of the world-renowned Porcelain Pagoda,
which was commissioned in 1412 and completed by 1431. With
a history of Buddhist worship dating to the Three Kingdoms
period, emperors were involved in construction there since its
beginnings. Neither the pagoda nor monastery has direct ties
to the Hongwu emperor or the period when Nanjing was the
primary Ming capital, yet Bao’ensi has had as great an impact
on architecture and architects as any building in Nanjing, and
it has been treated with as much care. Standing more than 100
meters, Porcelain Pagoda was the tallest pagoda in China for
its duration. Two replacement porcelain bricks were stored
in the imperial Ministry of Works for any one that might
13.2. Ming wall, Nanjing, in 2011
13.3. Approach to Xiaoling, tomb of Ming Hongwu emperor and his wife,
showing bend in spirit path, Nanjing, 1398
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 223
be damaged. Among the many published illustrations, Johan
Nieuhof’s of 1669 (see figure 17.2) and Johann Bernard Fischer
von Erlach’s of 1721 probably had the widest circulation. They
are especially important because this building that influenced
the construction of William Chambers’s Chinese pagoda in
Kew Gardens in 1762 would be destroyed in 1854 during the
Taiping Rebellion. It was rebuilt in the second decade of the
twenty-first century with contemporary materials that offer a
glass-like appearance.
Imperial Beijing
Beijing is a city known for, defined by, and identified by its
walls and the Forbidden City, and intensely tied to politics for
much of its history. A challenge to any discussion of Ming or
Qing Beijing is that so much has been rebuilt or restored so
many times. Buildings may be discussed in the context of the
emperor who commissioned them, but their structures must
be explained as of the last building period. The Forbidden City
was first constructed under Yongle; its buildings are discussed
with the names of those who used it in the late Qing dynasty
that are still used today.
In May 1370 Zhu Di became the Prince of Yan, the name of
the Zhou state that included today’s Beijing and is illustrated
in figure 2.3b. When Zhu Di arrived, a Liao pagoda at Tianning
Monastery, Marco Polo Bridge (see figure 10.36), the pagoda
at Miaoying Monastery (see figure 12.20), and Cloud Terrace
(see figure 12.21) were among the Liao, Jin, and Yuan remains.
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 Chapter 13
While his father lived, the prince consolidated power, a process
that included moving the north side of the Yuan outer wall 2.9
kilometers southward, for although much of the Mongol pop-
ulation had returned north, this consolidation recognized the
possible need to defend the new, and now smaller, Ming city
against incursions from Northern Yuan. Upon his father’s death
in 1398, Zhu Di turned south and took the Nanjing capital from
his nephew (the oldest son of Hongwu’s deceased oldest son). In
January 1403 Zhu Di proclaimed himself emperor, naming his
reign period Yongle. Although he commissioned the Porcelain
Pagoda and was a patron of other religious architecture such
as Jingjue Mosque in Nanjing, the Yongle emperor designated
Beijing, literally north capital, as his primary capital. Beginning
in 1406 he did extensive repair to the Grand Canal so that trade
could flourish between the two Ming capitals.
Construction of palaces would not begin for more than
another ten years. Yongle needed to solidify his power in the
North and the South, and he did not want to be seen as some-
one who lavished money on his own needs when so much had
to be spent on the military. This is why his ministers rather
than he, but no doubt with input from him, officially proposed
that the city theretofore known as Beiping (northern peace) be
renamed as the capital in the third moon of 1403. In 1406 it was
again officials who requested permission to build new palaces.
Purchase of timber and other necessary materials began imme-
diately, but in 1407 Yongle’s empress died. A site was chosen
for their joint mausoleum, discussed below, in 1409. It was
completed in 1416. Between 1416 and 1417 the area of Yongle’s
imperial spaces known as west palace was built. In the sixth
moon of 1417 construction began on the sectors that would
come to be known as the Forbidden City. Yongle held court in
the Forbidden City for the first time in 1421.
Gates and Courts
We have noted that the plan of Khubilai’s Dadu followed
the dictum for the ruler’s city in “Kaogongji,” even though
Dadu had only two north gates. Yongle’s Beijing followed the
same text and more classical stipulations. The city had three
north-south and three east-west thoroughfares, the court in
front and private residences behind, the ancestral temple to
the emperor’s left as he sat on his throne facing south, the
altars of soil and grain to his right, and markets. In addition,
Ming Beijing adhered to the “three courts, five gates” (sanchao,
wumen) dictum. Among earlier imperial cities, only Tang
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 224
Chang’an had attempted to implement this. Ming Beijing is the
only city in Chinese history where this scheme was successfully
constructed (figure 13.5).
The three courts are two inner courts, the governing court
(zhichao) centered on the Three Supreme Halls, where the ruler
holds audience, and the resting court (yanchao) focused on the
Back Halls behind it, for the ruler’s private chambers; and the
outer court (waichao), a cross-shaped space between today’s
Wumen and Tian’anmen that included the Ancestral Temple
and the Altar to Soil and Grain for government affairs. The
five gates are along the central axis, a continuous line through
the center of the Forbidden City. Defining the space almost
exclusively restricted to the emperor, five marble bridges were
crossed right in front of the first gate. Heading northward from
there, the first gate is today Tian’an Gate (Tian’anmen), known
in imperial China as Chengtian Gate, the point beyond which
only those with imperial business could proceed. It is where the
emperor issued imperial edicts, the profound marker between
his space and that of all others. Duan (Primordial) Gate comes
next. From that point the emperor could enter the ancestral
temple to the east and soil and grain altars to the west. The
next gate is Wu (Meridian) Gate, the five-entry, inverted-U-
shaped gate that today is the entrance to the Palace Museum.
Prisoners of war were presented here. A second set of five
marble bridges behind Wu Gate offers a dramatic approach
to the inner courts. The governing court is entered via the
Gate of Supreme Harmony (Taihemen), known as Fengtian
Gate during the Yongle reign and later as Huangji Gate. This
is where the emperor heard reports about the affairs of court.
Qianqing(men) Gate, the fifth, is the entry to the resting court.
The five gates also may be symbolic of the five phases (wuxing),
discussed in chapter 3. The concept of yin-yang, the negative
and positive forces of the universe, also is sometimes consid-
ered to be part of the layout of the Ming palaces. Odd numbers
are associated with yang, both the positive force and the male
force. Five gates and Three Front Halls thus are yang. The two
inner courts would be yin forces.
The Forbidden City
The complex of buildings known as the Forbidden City is the
group of moat-enclosed, palatial halls built by Yongle and
later buildings constructed under subsequent emperors of the
Ming or Qing dynasty in the same space (see figures i.1, 13.5). In
Chinese imperial planning, inner and central take precedence
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 The Chinese Imperial City

over outer, or more distant from both inner and the center.
Yongle’s Beijing comprised the same three major enclosed
regions as Khubilai’s capital Dadu but with different names.
The Forbidden City, Zijincheng, literally Purple Forbidden
City, was centermost, the equivalent of palace-cities of former
dynasties. Like Chinese capitals since the Sui-Tang period,
the second enclosure was the imperial-city where government
administration occurred. The outer wall enclosed both of them.
Between 1419 and 1421 the southern boundary of Yongle’s outer
city was extended about a kilometer to yield a total perimeter
of 23.5 kilometers, still smaller than Khubilai’s city.12
The Three Front Halls, from south to north, of Supreme
Harmony, Middle Harmony, and Preserving Harmony, ele-
vated together on the 8.13-meter-high, three-tier, mar-
ble platform, are the focus of both the governing court and
the Forbidden City. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, named
Fengtian (sacrifices to the heavens) Hall under Yongle, has
through its history been the most important building in the
Forbidden City and one of the largest in China.13 Eleven
bays across the front by five in depth, today it is 2,377 square
meters in floor space, about two-thirds its former size but
still the largest wooden building in China. It has been rebuilt
seven times, most recently between 1695 and 1697. The Hall of
Supreme Harmony is supported by seventy-two pillars, twelve
across the front and six in depth. None is eliminated, but the
central bay across the front and the central three in depth are
widened to make room for an altar. Pillars are 12.77 meters tall
with diameters of 1.06 meters. Each pillar is the same height,
for the principle of rise that we associated with buildings of
Tang through Yuan does not occur in late imperial construc-
tion. Twenty-four emperors sat on the throne in this building,
which was 33 meters across the front and elevated on a plat-
form of 7 meters. Ceremonies that included banquets with 108
tables14 on New Year’s Day, for the Winter Solstice, festivals
honoring longevity and the passage of ten years, an emperor’s
wedding, and the enthronement of an empress were held here.
Imperial edicts were proclaimed, successful candidates in the 13.5. Plan of Ming-Qing Beijing showing three courts and five gates
imperial exams were received, and the military commander
during wartime was appointed here as well.
The Hall of Middle Harmony is equidistant between the
Halls of Supreme Harmony and Preservation of Harmony.
Its name is a reference to the Confucian principle of zhonghe,
seeking a middle to ensure equilibrium and harmony. In con-
temporary terms, it can be understood as a staging hall. The

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 Chapter 13
emperor came here to go over his address for ceremonies at
the Altars of Heaven, Earth, the Sun, the Moon, Soil and
Grain, and Agriculture. In preparation for his visit to the
Altar of Agriculture, he would perform a ceremony in the
Hall of Middle Harmony with an ox leading a plow accompa-
nied by officials and singers. The ceremony in which the fam-
ily genealogy was confirmed on jade tablets was performed
here every ten years. The building is one of the smallest in
the Forbidden City, 256 meters square, with lattice windows
on each side so that it also has one of the brightest interiors.
The Hall of Preservation of Harmony (Baohe) is the Qing
name of the third building in the set. Its lesser importance
compared to the Hall of Supreme Harmony is signaled by the
hip-gable roof, still with two sets of eaves because, as one of
the Three Front Halls, it is extremely eminent. In the Ming
dynasty it was another staging building: the emperor put on
ceremonial attire here before granting titles to the empress or
crown prince. In the Qing dynasty it was a banquet hall for
events such as a daughter’s marriage or entertaining foreign
guests on the first and fifteenth days of the first moon, all
less important than those in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
Beginning in 1789 the final test in the civil service examina-
tions was held in this hall; the emperor attended the opening
ceremony. The Halls of Supreme Harmony and Preservation
of Harmony were flanked by symmetrically placed build-
ings near the covered arcade that enclosed the outer court.
Beyond them were service buildings such as kitchens, a phar-
macy, and a hospital. In front on the (emperor’s) left (to the
southeast) was a hall where the crown prince spent long
hours studying, where in the later Ming dynasty the three
best imperial exam papers were presented to the emperor,
and in yet later times, banquets were held. Other halls in the
southern part of the Forbidden City, outside the outer court,
were libraries where massive imperial compendia such as the
11,095-volume Yongle dadian (Great canon the Yongle reign),
compiled between 1403 and 1408, and the 36,381-volume Siku
quanshu (Complete writings of the four treasuries), compiled
between 1773 and 1782, were housed, and halls where imperial
records were kept.
The resting court is directly behind the governing court.
Like the governing court, it is entered by its own gate; dif-
ferent from the governing court, it has its own exit. The rest-
ing court shares a central axis with the outer and governing
courts, but its space is significantly smaller. The main halls
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 226
are elevated on a single-tier marble platform. Still, its two
main halls are flanked by side halls. Those two halls, named
as palaces (gong) in Chinese, Heavenly Purity (Qianqing) and
Earthly Repose (Kunning), were built during the Yongle reign.
At that time they were referred to as the Two Back Halls. The
Hall of Magnificent Union (Jiaotai), equidistant between
them, was added in the sixteenth century. The names are allu-
sions to trigrams or passages in the Yijing (Book of Changes).
Qian, first character in the Chinese name of Heavenly Purity
Palace, is three unbroken lines, the trigram for south and
yang. It is fitting that the emperor resides there. Kun is three
broken lines, the trigram for north and yin. Earthly Repose
Palace is the empress’s residence. Jiaotai is a reference to
the union of heaven and earth. The union also refers to the
emperor who lives in front and the empress behind.15
Both the front and back halls of the resting court have
double eaves, the front a hipped roof, like its counterpart
the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and the back a hip-gable roof,
like its counterpart the Hall of Preservation of Harmony.
The entry gate has a single-eave, hip-gable roof. Qing emper-
ors, particularly Kangxi, sometimes held audiences and made
important military announcements inside the five-bay gate.
Heavenly Purity Palace, right behind the gate, was the impe-
rial bedchamber for most of its history. Yongle arranged it as
a hall of nine divisions with three beds in each section so that
women the emperor might see that night slept in the same
building. During the Qing dynasty, banquets were given in
Heavenly Purity Palace, including a famous longevity ban-
quet hosted by Qianlong, by then over seventy, for more
than three thousand men of more than sixty years of age. The
Palace of Earthly Repose was the empress’s private residence
from the Yongle period until the reign of the Yongzheng
emperor (r. 1722–1735). Yongzheng moved his residence to
Cultivating the Mind Palace, discussed below, whereupon
the empress and those of successive dynasties chose other
palaces among the many that were available to the east and
west of the inner court. The eastern side of Earthly Repose
Palace was used for the wedding and wedding night of any
emperor who married after he ascended to the throne. The
empress received visits from imperial females and concubines
in this hall on the New Year and on her birthday. The back
gate of the resting court, the Gate of Earthly Tranquility, was
used by eunuchs. The twenty-five imperial seals were stored
in this structure as well.
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 The Chinese Imperial City
Six courtyards east and west of the inner court were desig-
nated by Yongle as residential space for imperial concubines.
By the end of the Qing dynasty, courtyard-enclosed residences
would increase to fill the space almost to the outer wall of the
Forbidden City.
Each of the twelve palaces has two courtyards with a main
building and side chambers in each for a total area of about
2,500 square meters. The main building in each front courtyard
was for receiving guests and the back building for sleeping. All
six on each side are interconnected by passageways. Because
the number of imperial wives and concubines varied from
emperor to emperor and during the reign of any one emperor,
in the Qing dynasty sometimes empresses lived here. A large
hall south of the eastern palaces was for ancestral worship, and
an abstinence hall for eating a restricted diet before sacrifices
was opposite it. Imperial princes lived in five rows of palaces
north of the six eastern and six western palaces. Beyond the six
eastern and six western palaces are areas sometimes known as
the outer eastern and outer western palaces.
Several significant construction projects were initiated in
the Qing dynasty. Repose and Longevity (Ningshou) Palace is
a 6,000-square-meter complex of courtyards east of the outer
eastern palaces. The nine-dragon screen wall that announces
entry to Repose and Longevity Palace was erected in 1771 by
Qianlong. It is the only ceramic-tile, freestanding wall with
nine dragons in the Forbidden City, and one of just a few
in China, for only an emperor was permitted to decorate a
screen with nine of the creatures.16 The focus of Repose and
Longevity Palace is Imperial Ultimate (Huangji) Hall, a nine-
bay structure on par with the Hall of Supreme Harmony. In
1688 Kangxi gave this complex to his mother. The buildings
gained singular importance at the end of the eighteenth cen-
tury when Qianlong, upon reaching his sixtieth reign year and
not wanting to surpass the sixty-year duration of his grandfa-
ther Kangxi’s reign, retired to these palaces. He lived there from
1795 to 1799. The buildings were lavishly renovated at that time.
Qianlong hosted a spectacular banquet for the elderly on New
Year’s Day of 1776 to which more than five thousand were sent
invitations; more than two thousand were seated in the hall.
In spite of Qianlong’s patronage of the architecture and
its use for celebration, he spent most of his time in the much
smaller Cultivating the Mind Palace (Yangxingong), south of
the six western palaces and another of the Qing contributions
to the Forbidden City. This complex divides into three parallel,
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 227
east-west rooms, an irregular plan that made it possible for
Qianlong to have privacy on either side without exiting. His
throne was in the central space, whereas he read and indulged in
hobbies, including writing and viewing calligraphy and precious
items, on the sides. Paintings by the Italian Jesuit painter at his
court, Giuseppe Castiglione (1688–1766), mentioned again in
chapter 16, hung in a side room. The Empress Dowager Cixi
(1835–1908) sat on a throne behind a screen in this palace in 1898
when her son the Guangxu emperor attempted reform during a
period of one hundred days. Buildings patronized by rulers of
the Qing dynasty are further discussed in chapters 14–16.
Outside the three courts were pavilions for entertainment
such as Pleasing Tones Pavilion (Changyinge), where perfor-
mances occurred at the New Year, winter solstice, and emperor’s
birthday, and three noteworthy gardens. The imperial garden
was due north of Earthly Repose Gate, the back gate of the Back
Halls complex. Since the third century CE, imperial gardens had
been located north of the palace-city and integrated into the
palace area as conditions made possible. Cining Garden was
between water channeled into the city to flow beneath marble
bridges in front of the Gate of Supreme Harmony and the
southern terminus of a group of residences known as the outer
western palaces, due west of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.
Northwest of Cultivating the Mind Palace was Qianlong’s
own garden, designed specifically for his retirement. Some
6,700-square-meters in size, the garden illustrated the princi-
ple of “borrowed view” by including sections that imitated or
were inspired by the beauty spots of southeastern China that
Qianlong had seen on his inspection tours of that region.17 The
Qianlong gardens were the focus of an international restoration
project in the first decades of the twenty-first century.18
Building Standards in Qing Palatial Architecture
The first modern histories of Chinese architecture, written
from the late 1920s through the 1940s, divide Chinese
architecture into pre-Tang, Tang to the fourteenth century,
and late imperial (Ming-Qing). Pre-Tang was an easy category
because then as now, no wooden architecture survived. A
driving question that enveloped dated buildings beginning
with East Hall of Foguang Monastery through those of the
Yuan dynasty was proof of the implementation of prescriptions
in Yingzao fashi. When examined eighty or ninety years ago,
Ming-Qing architecture was not differentiated as Ming or
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 Chapter 13
Qing, as we attempt to do in the chapters that follow, but
rather was labeled “period of rigidity,” a reference to the
use of straight timbers, pillars that did not exhibit rise, and
ceilings that only rarely opened dramatically at the center
in the manner of the Guanyin Pavilion of Dule Monastery
(see figure 8.5). Generalizations about the rigidity of the late
imperial timber frame were supported in those early histories
by study of Gongbu gongcheng zuofa (Construction regulations
of the Board of Works; hereafter Gongcheng zuofa), a text
issued by the Board of Works (Gongbu) at the Qing court
in 1734. Many extant buildings can be investigated alongside
Gongcheng zuofa.
Like Yingzao fashi, Gongcheng zuofa was supervised by an offi-
cial, a man named Yunli, also known as Prince Guo (1697–
1738).19 Forty of the seventy-four juan deal with construction in
wood. Twenty-seven of them explain wooden halls, pavilions,
or gates, with one building and one sectional drawing in each
chapter. These are the only illustrations in the treatise (figure
13.6). The next thirteen juan deal with bracket sets, especially
the regulations for use of materials with an eye toward econo-
mizing. Fourteen juan on regulations for efficiency of workers
follow. Unlike in Yingzao fashi, specific buildings contemporary
with the text are discussed as examples. They include architec-
ture of imperial gardens such as Yuanmingyuan, discussed in
chapter 16 below, and Yonghegong and building in Chengde,
discussed in chapter 15. Dates from 1727 to 1747 are given, indi-
cating additions after 1734 but confirming that the treatise
is a product of the Yongzheng and/or Qianlong reigns. Next
come seven juan on construction in other materials such as
stone, brick, and tile. Screens, doors, windows, and other pieces
inserted into the timber frame are discussed in this section.
Quotas, both of materials and of the labor force, are the sub-
jects of the final chapters. This focus on pricing is clear in the
preface. Yingzao fashi also considers the work hours that can
be expected of a laborer, salary, and price of materials, but the
Song manual takes accurate construction as a prime agenda,
whereas Gongcheng zuofa from beginning to end is concerned
with economy.
As in Yingzao fashi, wooden architecture in the eigh-
teenth-century treatise is based on a module. Whereas in
Yingzao fashi there are eight grades of timber that yield the
228
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 228
13.6. Pavilion of large-scale timber
construction with hip-gable roof,
Yunli, Gongbu gongcheng zuofa, juan
14/1b–2a
cai (module), the module in Gongcheng zuofa is divided into
doukou, of which there are eleven. Doukou, literally mouth
(kou) of the block (dou), is the first of six main principles
in Gongcheng zuofa.20 Sometimes referred to as the mortise,
it is the same dou (block) in the Chinese word for bracket
set, dougong. However, although dougong has been used here
as in China today, to mean a bracket set of any time, it is a
Qing term explained in Gongcheng zuofa. The equivalent in
Yingzao fashi is puzuo, the word used in previous chapters to
designate a bracket set formation according to its rank as
stipulated in Yingzao fashi. Like cai, doukou is a module, but
whereas cai is a two-dimensional standard size of wood that
comes in eight sizes according to the rank, and whose width
and depth are designated in fen (15 deep and 10 wide), the
Qing doukou is designated only as a measurement, the width
of the gong (bracket-arm), in eleven sizes from approxi-
mately 15 centimeters to approximately 2.5. Any wooden
part that is not a whole-number multiple is designated
with an additional fractional part. The term fen is found
in Gongcheng zuofa only in reference to gong in certain loca-
tions. Whereas the differences in terminology may some-
times appear subtle, the differences in a Song and Qing
bracket set are always apparent. As mentioned in chapter
9, every piece of the Song (and Tang, Five Dynasties, and
Liao) bracket set is functional, and the size of the set is large
compared to the height of the column beneath it, whereas
the Qing bracket set has many more parts than a Song set,
and not every part is functional. The Qing bracket set is as
small as one-eighth the height of the column that supports
it compared to as much as one-half in the Tang period,
and there may be as many as eight of these small clusters
between columns (see figures 9.14, 9.15).
If the doukou system is the first principle of Gongcheng
zuofa, the above-mentioned length of the bracket set com-
pared to the column below it relates to a second building
principle of Qing-period construction: the diameter of a col-
umn should be one-tenth that column’s height, or a ratio of 6
doukou to 60 doukou. Yingzao fashi specifies that the diameter
of a pillar cannot exceed 3 cai, but the height is not specified.
The Qing norm is a long, slender column with tiny bracket
sets that include decorative pieces. A third principle of Qing
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 The Chinese Imperial City

13.7. Infrastructural drawing of Hall

of Supreme Harmony

1. Eave Pillar (Yanzhu)
2. Interior Eave Pillar (Laoyanzhu)
3. Interior Pillar (Jinzhu)
4. Greater Architrave (Da’efang)
5. Lesser Architrave (Xiaoe’fang)
6. Cushion Board between Architraves (You’edianban)
7. Lower Exterior Transversal Tie-beam
(Tiaojiansuiliang)
8. Upper Exterior Transversal Tie-beam
(Tiaojianliang)
9. Flat Tie-beam (Pingbanfang)
10. Upper Eave Architrave (Shangyanefang)
11. Lower Roof Ridge Tie-beam (Bojifang)
12. Wall Panel (Above Pillars) (Zoumaban)
13. Axial Purlin (Zhengxinheng)
14. Eave Purlin (Tiaoyanheng)
15. Seven-rafter-length Cross-beam (Qijialiang)
16. Transverse Tie-beam (Suiliangfang)
17. Five-rafter-length Cross-beam (Wujialiang)
18. Three-rafter-length Cross-beam (Sanjialiang)
19. Junior Pillar (Tongzhu)
20. Two-step Cross-beam (Shuangbuliang)
21. Single-step Cross-beam (Danbuliang)
22. Kingpost (Leigongzhu [Thunder-support Pillar])
23. Brace That Joins Kingpost and Cross-beam
(Jijiaobei)
24. Roof Ridge Support (Fujimu)
25. Roof Ridge Purlin (Jiheng)
26. Roof Ridge Cushion Board (Jidianban)
27. Roof Ridge Tie-beam (Jifang)
28. Upper Roof Purlin (Shangjinheng)
29. Intermediate Roof Purlin (Zhongjinheng)
30. Lower Roof Purlin (Xiajinheng)
31. Purlin (Jinheng)
32. Intermediary Support (Gejiake)
33. Eave Rafter (Yanchuan)
34. Flying Eave Rafter (Feiyanchuan)

wooden architecture is that intercolumnar bracket sets must
be positioned 11 doukou apart from center to center. The dis-
tance between pillars is thus determined by the number of
bracket sets, or vice versa, but that distance is always a mul-
tiple of 11 doukou. Fourth, all columns of a building facade
are the same height. Rise does not occur in Qing construc-
tion, and as a result, the baseline of a roof is often straight,
certainly straighter than that of a Song roof. Fifth, Qing
beam-ends have a height to width ratio of 5:4 or 6:5, a pro-
portion that affords significantly less stability than a Song
beam-end, whose ideal ratio is 3:2. Combined with the lack
of rise, disappearance of crescent-shaped beams in favor of
only straight ones, and the rule that beams be 2 fen wider than
the diameters of columns they join, the Qing building indeed
presents a more rigid wooden frame than a Song structure.
Finally, although wooden roof frames have largely the same
components in Song and Qing China, they are constructed
differently. The Qing roof is built beginning with the lowest
purlin whose distance upward to the next one is measured as 5
ju, with the last interval between purlins being 9 ju. The Song
roofer starts at the ridge purlin, and subsequent purlins are
measured downward, resulting in a more gradual roof slope.
Hall of Supreme Harmony as a Case Study
As we know, the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden
City today is a Qing-dynasty version of the building
commissioned by Yongle more than three hundred years
earlier.21 As such, its current frame is an ideal case study of
the highest Qing building standards, in fact, the ultimate
standards of wooden architecture expressed in Gongcheng zuofa,
for the most important ceremonies of imperial China took
place in this building for about half a millennium. The doukou
is 15 centimeters. Eight bracket sets are placed between the
two central columns across the front facade. The bracket sets
are one-tenth the height of the columns beneath them. Every
exterior pillar is the same height and has the same diameter.
They are placed so that no columns are eliminated from inside
the hall. Every beam in either direction is straight (figure 13.7).

229

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 Chapter 13
The Hall of Supreme Harmony is made of more than ten
thousand straight pieces of wood. In spite of this number, a
comparison with a cross section of any building studied thus
far shows less diversity in shapes of wooden pieces, no curved
members, and few diagonal ones. Still, the plan and location
in its three-unit group indicate remarkable similarities with
the late-second-millennium BCE building complex excavated
at Fengchu (see figure 1.12), and with numerous three-struc-
ture compounds with gong arrangements; and the timbers are
notched for tenoning without metal joiners or abrasives as
they were at Hemudu in ca. 5000 BCE (see figure 1.4). That fun-
damental features of China’s architectural tradition endured
so long was pointed out in the introduction and is discussed
again in the conclusion. We have seen the power of the Chinese
hall as the symbol of the Chinese emperor across Asia from
Mongolia to Japan. Why the emperor through the nineteenth
century continued to build with a material with the duration
of wood may be because of the potency of his and its ties to
Chinese antiquity, but why he abandoned curves and two-
story open interiors such as existed at East Hall of Foguang
Monastery and Guanyin Pavilion is harder to understand (see
figures 6.10, 8.5). The timber frame of the Hall of Supreme
Harmony is an expanded version of the support system in the
humblest wooden dwelling in China. It is thus understandable
that a mere twenty-seven drawings sufficed to explain this
eighteenth-century tradition, and Gongcheng zuofa could have
got by with fewer. The awe and aura of standing in a building
or courtyard of the Forbidden City are due to the decoration.
Like the wooden components, the lavish gold, silver, jade, lac-
quer cloisonné, bronze, or mother-of-pearl repeat in every lat-
tice of every row of every ceiling of every bay of every building.
The structurally rigid halls of the Forbidden City in fact
may be viewed as backdrop for decoration. As noted in the
introduction, the intent of Chinese architecture is never to
be appreciated as an individual building. Although multistory
230
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 230
13.8. “Passing through Gate of
Supreme Harmony, Marriage of
Guangxu Emperor,” 1889. Palace
Museum, Beijing
architecture such as pagodas may have presented construction
challenges, builders were always able to employ the timber
frame literally as a skeleton of replaceable components that
could be covered with costly decoration and would be one in a
group of similarly elaborated buildings. Further, the buildings
are themselves backdrops for human regalia, and imperial
architecture is background for ceremony. The members of the
court, each in his place at a wedding or other imperial cere-
mony, are equivalent to the expensive but profoundly repet-
itive pillars and beams, and the decoration that covers them
(figure 13.8). By the time Gongcheng zuofa was written, two
millennia of imperial history confirmed that nothing more
than rigid timber framing and expensive decor was required to
identify China’s most symbolic space. Architecture of China’s
Forbidden City is not intended for careful examination. It
is a setting for the real purpose of the Forbidden City: the
emperor. His presence and the ceremonies he performs, not the
construction method, glorify the architecture.
The Module on a Larger Scale
The Forbidden City is also almost unique in the degree to
which modules were implemented.22 Just as the sizes of
fundamental buildings parts and relations between them were
conceived on a module, ground plans and distances between
buildings and walls were modularly generated. The outer wall
of the Forbidden City measures 753 meters east-to-west by 961
meters north-to-south. The distance between the outer edges of
the northern wall of the Forbidden City and the northern wall
of the outer city of Beijing (now destroyed) was 2,904 meters;
the distance between the outer edge of the Forbidden City’s
southern wall and the southern wall of the outer city (also
destroyed) was 1,448.9 meters. The ratio of these two distances
is close to 2:1. The ratio of the north-south length from the
north side of the outer wall to the Forbidden City’s north wall
compared to the north-south dimension of the Forbidden City
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 The Chinese Imperial City
was 2,904:961 meters, or 3.02:1; of the counterpart southern
walls, 1,448.9:961 meters, or 1.51:1. Allowing for a 1–2 percent
deviation, the distance between the northern wall of the
Forbidden City and the northern city wall was three times the
north-south length of the palace complex, and the distance
between its southern wall and the southern city wall is 1.5
times the north-south length of the palace complex, another
ratio of 2:1. It thus appears that when Beijing was built, the
north-south length of the city was intended to be 5.5 times the
north-south length of the Forbidden City, and the Forbidden
City was positioned so that the distance to the southern outer
wall was one-half the distance to the northern outer wall.
The east-west width of Ming Beijing measured 6,637 meters,
and compared to the east-west width of the Forbidden City,
their proportional relationship was 6,637:753 meters, or 8.81:1,
which rounds up to 9:1, with a deviation of 2 percent; nine, one
recalls, is a number associated with the emperor. The area of
Beijing’s outer city under Yongle was 49.5 times the area of the
Forbidden City, which rounds up to 50 times.
Inside the Forbidden City, the east-west width of the Three
Front Halls (234 meters) is twice that of the Back Palaces (118
meters), again allowing for slight deviation. The Three Front
Halls are 348 meters north to south and 234 meters east to west,
a length to width ratio of 3:2. The back cluster is 218 meters
long by 118 meters wide, giving way to a rectangular courtyard
with a length to width ratio of 11:6 (see figure 13.5). The distance
between the central axes of the front eave columns of the Gate
of Supreme Harmony and Heavenly Purity Gate, the entrance
to the Back Palaces, is 437 meters, or twice the north-south
length of the Back Palaces (218 meters). The area of the Three
Front Halls was exactly four times the area of the Back Halls.
The Six Eastern and Western Palaces and Five Eastern and
Western Lodges to their north further confirm the modu-
lar basis for the plan of Beijing. The distance between the
outer edge of the southern wall of the Six Eastern and Western
Palaces southernmost palaces and the outer edge of the north-
ern wall of the Five Eastern and Western Lodges is 216 meters,
so close to the north-south length of the Back Halls that one
assumes that the same dimensions were intended.
The distance between Wu (Meridian) Gate and Great Ming
Gate (later known as Great Qing Gate, today China Gate
[Zhonghuamen]), also uses the length of the Back Halls as its
module. The distance between Wu Gate and the north and
south side walls of the east and west rooms for officials in the
231
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 231
courtyard between Tian’an Gate and Duan Gate measures
438.6 meters, just 2.6 meters longer than twice the length of the
Back Halls. Again, taking a standard deviation into account,
the assumption is that a 2:1 ratio was intended. The distance
from the south side of the gate piers of Tian’an Gate to the
southern end of the Thousand-pace Corridor is three times
the length of the Back Halls. The distance between the eastern
and western gates (East and West Chang’an Gates) in front of
Tian’an Gate is 356 meters, three times the width of the Back
Halls. The front of Ming Beijing, the section between Tian’an
and Great Ming Gates, also is three times the length of the
Back Halls compound. Finally, the distance between the wall
north of Prospect Hill and the wall on either side of Great
Ming Gate is 2,828 meters, thirteen times the length of the
Back Halls. There is little doubt that the length and width of
the Back Halls were modules for design throughout the impe-
rial sectors of the capital.
Three features dominate planning inside the Forbidden
City. The first is the centrality of the main hall in a building
compound. The main hall is the focal hall, such that the focal
buildings of the Three Front Halls, Back Halls, Six Eastern
and Western Palaces, and Palace of Repose and Longevity
are in the geometrical center of each compound. If one draws
diagonal lines between opposite corners of the compounds,
the points of intersection are in the center of each focal hall
(see figure 13.5). Second, a square grid network with sides
of 10 zhang, 5 zhang, or 3 zhang for each boundary of a grid
was applied both to sections of the Forbidden City and to
individual palaces. The 10-zhang square grid is applied to
the Three Front Halls; it divides the area into seven cells in
the east-west direction and eleven cells in the north-south
direction. The grid is independent of the module of the Back
Halls. The depth of the front courtyard corresponds to six
squares if the boundary lines are set in the north along the
walls east and west of the Hall of Supreme Harmony and in
the south along the northern podium edges of the east and
west side gates of the Gate of Supreme Harmony. The front
courtyard thus measures 60 zhang. Calculating the north-
south length from the beginning of the front platform of
the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the front courtyard measures
four squares and is equal to 40 zhang. The platform beneath
the Hall of Supreme Harmony also is four squares wide and
equal to 40 zhang. The central axes of the left- and right-side
gates of the Hall of Supreme Harmony are thereby aligned
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 Chapter 13
at a distance of two squares, equal to 20 zhang from the cen-
tral axis of the hall. The width of the podium of the hall is
also two squares and equal to 20 zhang. The areas between
Tian’an Gate and Wu Gate and between Wu Gate and Jinshui
(Golden River) Bridge (in front of Tian’an Gate) also are laid
out according to the 10-zhang square grid. The Back Halls
and the Six Eastern and Western Palaces use a 5-zhang square
grid. The Back Halls correspond to seven squares in the east-
west direction and thirteen in the north-south direction. The
whole compound thus measures 35 by 65 zhang. The front
courtyard is six squares wide, equal to 30 zhang. The individ-
ual compounds of the Six Eastern and Western Palaces are
three squares in depth and width.
Third is the relation between the numbers nine and five,
again odd, or yang, and the Forbidden City. The ratio between
the width of the compound and platform of the Three Front
Halls is 234:130 meters, or 9:5. The north-south length of the
gong-shaped platform is almost 228 meters, roughly the same
as 234 meters, so that the length to width ratio of the gong-
shaped platform is also 9:5. The gong-shaped platform of the
Back Halls, 97 by 56 meters, also corresponds to this ratio.
Modular proportions also were employed in imperial altars of
the Forbidden City.
Altars
The Forbidden City was encircled by altars and buildings
where the emperor or his surrogates made periodic sacrifices.
In the Qing dynasty, an emperor who fulfilled all his
obligations would perform more than fifty rites a year; in
1905 there were eighty-three annual imperial rituals.23 Some
of the altars and their rituals traced to the Zhou dynasty.
Beijing’s most important imperial ceremonial architecture has
a continuous history on the locations where Yongle had first
performed those ceremonies, even though, like the buildings
of the Forbidden City, structures were rebuilt in different
forms at later times.
Altar to Heaven Complex (Tiantan)
The architecture of Beijing’s altar complex for sacrifices to
the heavens is unique.24 It includes three circular structures
and the only circular building with three sets of roof eaves. It
became the most sacred space in imperial China in the Ming
dynasty when sacrifices to the heavens were deemed more
232
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 232
important than sacrifices to the imperial ancestors. Popularly
known as the Temple of Heaven, the building complex adheres
to the fundamental principles of spatial planning found in the
Forbidden City.
As at the Forbidden City, the most important buildings of
the Altar to Heaven complex stand on a primary south-north
axis. As at the governing court, the three main structures com-
bine to form a gong arrangement. The difference, that each of
the buildings is circular, is because the circle bears the primary
symbolism of heaven, which, according to the Rituals of Zhou,
is round. The heavenly circle combines with the square to form
two horseshoe-shaped enclosing walls.
The origins of the building complex were in the early Ming
dynasty under Hongwu. Sacrifices to the heavens are pre-
scribed in the Ritual Records (Liji); emperors before the Ming
dynasty, even non-Chinese rulers of Jin and Yuan, made sacri-
fices to heaven and earth and built altars for sacrifices to other
entities. In 1368, even before Hongwu determined that his pri-
mary capital would be in Nanjing, he ordered construction of
a circular mound (huanqiu) south of the main south gate of his
city and a square mound (fangqiu) north of the city, both for
imperial sacrifices. By 1371 the circular mound had two levels
and was approached by nine stairs from each of four sides, the
southern stairway the longest. The mound was enclosed by
a balustrade with four gates, and an additional gate beyond
each of them, again the southern the largest. In 1378, fol-
lowing natural disasters, an eleven-bay Great Sacrifice Hall
(Dasidian), decorated with gold and approached by a three-
bay path, was built for worship of earth in the same complex.
A kitchen, storage hall, pavilion for preparing animals for
sacrifices, and abstinence hall (zhaitang), where the emperor
abstained from meat and wine for three days prior to the ritu-
als and where he slept the night before their enactment, were
within the complex.
Until the mid-sixteenth century, whether sacrifices to
heaven and earth should be in the same or different places and
whether the locus should be open-air or interior space, were
debated at the Chinese court. In 1420 Yongle ordered con-
struction of a suburban altar for sacrifices to heaven and earth,
according to the system implemented by Hongwu. The altar
was covered by Great Sacrificial Hall, a structure with straight
sides on the south, east, and west but a curved north side,
similar in plan to the enclosing walls of the Altar to Heaven
complex that symbolize a union of heaven and earth. One such
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 The Chinese Imperial City
enclosing, horseshoe-shaped wall was built by Yongle. He posi-
tioned the complex southeast of Beijing’s south wall.
The next changes occurred under the emperor Jiajing (r.
1521–1567). He maintained the idea of a circular, open-air altar
for worship of heaven to the south, and he built a hall for
sacrifices for a good harvest, the successor to Great Sacrificial
Hall, to its north, but still in the same precinct. They were sep-
arated by a partition wall but connected by a gate. Eventually
the back building became the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous
Year (Qiniantan). It took Jiajing about twenty-five years to
complete construction.
Already in 1530, the decision to divide the altar complex
into two sacrificial sites having been made, the Circular
Mound for sacrifices to heaven was placed south of the still
existing covered altar for sacrifices to heaven and earth. The
Circular Mound today stands on a three-tier podium in the
southern part of the central axis of the Altar to Heaven com-
plex, although it is smaller than in the Ming dynasty. After
the construction of the Circular Mound, Great Sacrifice Hall
was replaced with the Altar for Prayer for Grain (Qigutan),
which was completed by 1545. The lower part of this building,
a three-tier, circular podium with a base diameter of 91 meters,
is the altar proper. The Altar for Prayer for Grain, a circular
structure with a diameter of 24.5 meters, crowned with triple
eaves and a conical roof, is on top of it. It was renamed Hall
for Prayer for a Prosperous Year (Qiniandian) in 1751. The gates
and side buildings around it follow the original plan of the
Yongle period.
In 1531 Jiajing built a small, circular building directly
behind the Circular Mound. Today known as the Imperial
Vault of Heaven (Huangqiongyu), it stores the tablet of the
Lord of Heaven to whom the emperor offered sacrifices. It is,
in other words, an appendage to the Circular Mound. In 1531 it
had two sets of roof eaves.
Even though circular buildings are found there, the Hall
for Prayer for a Prosperous Year, like the Forbidden City, was
laid out on a square grid. A 5-zhang square was its module.
The diameter of the step of the bottom podium of the Hall
for Prayer for a Prosperous Year matches the width of the
Prosperous Year Gate to its south, both two squares, or 10
zhang. The diameter of the middle tier of the three-tier podium
measures five squares, equal to 25 zhang. The north-south length
of the buildings to its east and west sides corresponds to three
squares, or 15 zhang, and the distance from the northern edge
233
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 233
of the podium of Prosperous Year Gate to the bottom step of
the three-tier altar is the same. The dimensions of the other
buildings relate to these according to the 5-zhang-square mod-
ule. After the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year was built,
the Altar to Heaven complex was expanded farther north and
south to an area 1,289.2 meters east to west by 1,650 meters
north to south.
Only after this enlargement was completed did Jiajing
make the change to Beijing for which he is best known. In 1553
the emperor expanded the city southward to include the ritual
complex on the east of the main axis. The southern extension
came to be known as the outer city, Beijing’s fourth wall-en-
closed space (see figure 13.1). The former outer city then came
to be known as the inner city. After this, the court never again
debated whether heaven and earth should be worshiped in the
same place. The Altar to Earth in the northern part of Beijing
is discussed briefly below.
In 1588 the abstinence hall, where the emperor limited
his diet in preparation for ascent to the Altar for Prayer
for Grain (today Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year), was
expanded. The next changes to the Temple to Heaven complex
took place during the Qianlong reign. In 1751 the roofs of the
Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year and Imperial Vault of
Heaven were covered with blue tiles, and the Circular Mound
was enlarged between 1749 and 1753 when its blue stone was
replaced with the white one sees today. The three circular
structures and abstinence hall were the most important build-
ings in the emperor’s ritual processions. The round buildings
also employ the number three to symbolize heaven (top),
earth (middle), and man (or humanity) (bottom). Its square,
of course, is nine.
The emperor entered the complex for paying homage to
the heavens from the west. He continued straight along a
road through a second gate, whereupon he turned right to the
abstinence hall. The morning after sleeping there, he exited to
come south and then east, in order to follow the direct avenue
to the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous Year. His first stop was
the Circular Mound. The uppermost terrace is 3 by 30 zhang,
the second terrace is 5 by 30 zhang, and the bottom terrace is 7
by 30 zhang; the odd numbers are associated with yang, heaven,
and the male. The number of flagstones on each terrace spiral
around in increments of 9, the imperial number, so that the
circles on the upper terrace have between 9 and 81 stones,
the second terrace 90 through 162, and the bottom 171 to the
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 Chapter 13
outermost ring of 243. The numbers of pillars also are multi-
ples of 9, from top to bottom, 72, 108, and 180, for a total of
360. Three sets of three stairs lead to the altar from each side.
Just north of the Circular Mound is the Imperial Vault
of Heaven, built entirely of wood in 1530, except for the
roof tiles that were changed to blue at the time of Jiajing.
This is the structural complex known for its acoustical
effects. The 6-meter-high wall that encloses it is called Echo
Wall because a whisper into it, it is said, can be heard 180
degrees away on the opposite side. South of the hall is Triple
Sounding Stone, where, if one stands and claps, one is said
to hear an echo on the first stone, double echo on the second
stone, and triple echo on the third.
The components of the Hall for Prayer for a Prosperous
Year are as symbolic as those of the Circular Mound. The
lowest roof layer is supported by twelve outer pillars sym-
bolizing the twelve divisions into which the Chinese day
(twenty-four hours today) was traditionally divided. The
second roof is supported by an inner ring of twelve pillars
that represent the twelve lunar months. The top roof is sup-
ported by four enormous pillars that represent the four sea-
sons. The total of twenty-eight represents the lunar lodges.
From 1430 until the Qianlong period, the roof eaves were
blue, yellow, and green. As noted, they became uniformly
blue during a Qianlong renovation. The hall one sees today
was reconstructed after it burned in 1889 (figure 13.9).
In the Qing dynasty, the emperor came to these altars
three times a year, at the winter and summer solstices, and
on the first day of the first lunar month. Officials were
present to guide him through the rituals. The day before
each rite, Beijing was silent so that the emperor could pro-
ceed from the Forbidden City to the altar complex without
being seen.
Ancestral Temple (Taimiao)
There were some ten other altars or spaces for imperial
ceremonies in premodern Beijing (see figure 13.1). The
designated number is not precise because some were part of
multialtar complexes and others were loci of imperial rituals
but not altars.
The Ancestral Temple is an example of the second type.
Worship of tablets on which the names of one’s ancestors
were inscribed was a Chinese institution since ancient times.
Emperors worshiped their ancestors in front of tablets in a
234
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 234
hall south of the palace, a location prescribed in “Kaogongji”
and its location since the Han capital Chang’an (see figure
3.2). Worship of the ancestors was the supreme obligation of
the Chinese emperor through the Yuan dynasty. Hongwu and
all subsequent rulers of China maintained ancestral temples,
but after the worship of heaven became supreme, the ancestral
temple was one among the imperial ritual complexes of the
capital. It is part of the section of imperial Beijing known as
the outer court.
Like the Three Front Halls of the Forbidden City, the
Ancestral Temple was a three-hall complex. Yongle built
Beijing’s Ming ancestral temple in 1420, upon ascending the
throne. The complex was 197,000 square meters and enclosed
by a corridor that joined the entry gate (Halberd Gate
[Jimen]) and two additional red walls. Although all buildings
have been repaired or rebuilt, including a brief period when
Jiajing transformed the site into nine temples in deference to
the Nine Temples described in Zhou texts, Halberd Gate is
believed to retain its early-fifteenth-century structure. Marble
bridges cross the Jin River in front of the gate. The front hall,
the Hall for Worship of the Ancestors, has a double-eave,
golden roof and is elevated on a three-tier platform (figure
13.10). Originally it was nine bays across the front. Individual
buildings and the composite of gate and three halls behind
it imitate the Three Front Halls complex of the Forbidden
City. Qianlong expanded it to eleven bays, to match the
expanded Hall of Supreme Harmony. Like that hall, the Hall
for Worship of the Ancestors is made of strictly straight tim-
bers and lavishly decorated with motifs that repeat again and
again. The small Middle Hall behind it housed the imperial
tablets that were moved into the front hall for ceremonies. It
is sometimes known as resting hall (qindian) because imperial
tablets reside there. The wider back hall, built in 1491, housed
tablets of the more remote ancestors—in the Qing dynasty,
those of predynastic Manchu rulers. Tablets commemorat-
ing nonruling members of the imperial family and meritori-
ous officials were kept in buildings of the enclosing arcade.
Tablets not in use were placed on large floor pillows, similar
to mattresses. On the first day of the first, fourth, seventh, and
tenth lunar months and the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth
lunar month, tablets were brought into the Hall for Worship
of the Ancestors for ceremonies. Another ceremony was the
13.9. Air view of Altar to Heaven complex
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 13.10. Hall for Worship of the Ancestors, Ancestral Temple complex, Beijing,
early fifteenth century with many later repairs

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 Chapter 13
display of prisoners of war to the tablets of past emperors.
The emperor also came here when he ascended the throne.
Upon the establishment of the Qing dynasty, tablets of the
Ming rulers were sent to the Temple for Rulers of the Past,
discussed next. In the 1920s the Ancestral Temple complex
became a public park, and in the 1950s it was expanded into
the Workers’ Cultural Palace. Today it is an open tourist site
as well as a fashionable place for weddings. The layout of the
Ancestral Temple has the same 5-zhang square grid employed
in the Forbidden City.
Other Temples and Altars
An Ancestral Temple presupposes sacrifices not only to the
ancestors of a ruler’s own dynasty but to rulers of the past. In
1530 Jiajing built the Temple for Rulers of the Past for tablets
of rulers beginning with the Legendary Emperors.25 Hongwu
had built such a temple, named Diwangmiao (Temple of
Emperors of the Past), in Nanjing in 1373. Jiajing set up twenty-
one tablets and performed sacrifices at the Beijing temple in
the spring and autumn. The Qing emperors added tablets for
rulers of non-Chinese dynasties such as Liao and Jin for a total
of 144, as well as seventy-nine meritorious official tablets, forty
more than in the Ming dynasty. As at the Forbidden City and
Ancestral Temple, three marble bridges led to the Temple for
Rulers of the Past. The first courtyard contains only pavilions
and service buildings. At its back is Jingde Gate, behind which
is Jingde Chongshenggong, the main sacrificial hall, named
palace (gong), a practice we have noted for the Back Halls in the
Forbidden City. Elevated on a three-tier marble platform, nine
bays wide, and with a double-eave, hipped roof, it resembles
the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Hall for Worship of
the Ancestors of the Ancestral Temple. The tablets of the
meritorious officials are in side halls. The Temple for Rulers of
the Past was restored in 2003–2004.
Like the Ancestral Temple, the Altar to Soil and Grain,
sometimes referred to as land and grain, also is mentioned in
“Kaogongji.” The complex is prescribed to be on the opposite
side of an imperial city. The three-tiered, white marble plat-
form beneath the altars represents earth and is square. It was
built based on the 5-zhang module used at the Forbidden City
and the Ancestral Temple. Staircases approach it from each
side. Constructed by Yongle in 1421, the upper platform is cov-
ered with five colors of soil that came to the emperor as gifts:
yellow in the center to represent the emperor and, clockwise
238
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 238
starting at the south, red, white, black, and green in accord-
ance with the directional associations. The five colors also sym-
bolize the five phases (wuxing). Storage buildings and a kitchen
for keeping sacrificial equipment and preparing animals for
sacrifice are in the complex. The emperor performed ceremo-
nies on the fifth day of the second and eighth lunar months. In
1925 the body of China’s president Sun Yat-sen was temporarily
housed here. Since 1928 the main hall has been named after
him, Zhongshan (Yat-sen in Cantonese) Hall.
Jiajing built the Altar to Earth north and slightly east of
the Forbidden City in 1530 following the debate at court that
determined that the worship of heaven and earth should occur
in separate locations. It was said to be modeled on the altar for
worship of the God of Earth built by Hongwu in Nanjing. The
two-tier, marble altar is square, representing the earth. The
upper level is 60 chi on each side (about 20 square meters), and
the lower level is 66 chi on each side (about 22 square meters),
the number six associated with the earth. Initially called Fanze,
or square pool, because the structure was moat-surrounded so
that water could be channeled into it via a dragonhead, begin-
ning in 1534 it became Ditan (earth altar). Like the Altar to
Heaven complex, this building group includes an abstinence
hall and a hall where animals were slaughtered for sacrifice.
There is also a hall where tablets of the spirits of rivers, seas,
and mountains were kept. The annual sacrifice took place on
the day of the summer solstice. The site became a public park
in 1925.
The Altar to the Sun (Ritan), east of the Forbidden City, also
was built in 1530 by Jiajing. Elevated on a single-tier platform,
in the Qing dynasty the west-oriented, square altar was rebuilt
to be about 16.7 meters on each side. Originally it was enclosed
by a wall. Like most other altars in Beijing, it had storage halls,
a kitchen, and a building in which the emperor changed his
clothes in preparation for his ritual. Sacrifices occurred at the
time of the autumn equinox. Today the square enclosing wall
has six gates on each side and the site is a park. The Altar to
the Moon (Yuetan), also built by Jiajing, is opposite the Altar
to the Sun, east-west oriented, and west of the Forbidden City.
Sacrifices were performed on a white marble platform approxi-
mately 1.5 meters high and 13 meters square, as it survives today.
It has the same service halls as the Altar to the Sun. The annual
ceremony occurred at the time of the spring equinox.
The Altar to Agriculture, also known as the Altar to the
First Crops (Xiannongtan [more literally, Altar to the Premier
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 The Chinese Imperial City
13.11. Taisuidian, today Museum of
Architecture, Grounds of Altar to
Agriculture, Beijing, fifteenth
century with later repairs
Agriculturist]), is one of four altars that enclose Beijing’s inner
city: Earth in the north, the Sun in the east, the Moon in the
west, and this one in the south. Constructed in 1420 for sac-
rifices to the thearch (a name used for China’s first three sov-
ereigns) Shennong, in popular religion the god of agriculture,
the 1.5-meter-square altar faces south. A hall that contains the
tablets used in the ceremony is behind the altar. In prepara-
tion for the spring ceremony, which in the Qing dynasty took
place at the equinox, the emperor entered the Hall of Middle
Harmony and inspected plowing implements. Part of the ritual
at the Temple to Agriculture included the emperor wearing
the costume of a farmer. Two hexagonal wells on site symboli-
cally provided water.
An Altar to the Planet Jupiter, known as Taisuidian (The
Hall of the God of the Year), was built on the grounds of the
Temple to Agriculture, also in 1420. Sacrifices were performed
to the planet on the altar, and sacrifices were made to the
deities of the twelve moons of the year in auxiliary halls on
the east and west. Today Taisuidian houses the Museum of
Architecture (figure 13.11).
The Altars to the Gods of Sky and Earth also were located
on the grounds of the Temple to Agriculture. The gods of
wind, clouds, thunder, and rain received imperial sacrifices
at the Altar to the Gods of the Sky (Taishentan), a 1.5-meter-
high, 17-square-meter structure approached by nine steps,
symbolizing the heavens, on each of its four sides. To the
north are four white stone shrines, one dedicated to each
of the natural forces. The Altar to the Gods of the Earth
(Diqitan) was for imperial sacrifices to the gods of mountains
and seas. West of the Altar to the Gods of the Sky, it is 1.43
meters high and occupies an area of 33 square meters. Six
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 239
steps, symbolizing earth, lead to the platform on four sides.
South of the altar are five stone shrines, three decorated with
mountains symbolizing the five sacred peaks (wuyue) and
the five guardian mountains (wuzhen), and two on which
waves symbolizing the four great seas and four great rivers
are carved. Ponds at the bases of the shrines were filled with
water only during sacrifices.
The Altar to Silkworms (Xiancantan [more literally, Altar
to the Premier Silkworm Cultivator, or the Goddess of
Silkworms]), was built under the Qianlong emperor in 1742
on Beihai, the parkland on the artificial lake constructed in
southwestern Beijing in Jin times whose monumental white
pagoda is discussed in chapter 15. It is a 1.3-meter-high altar
approached by stairs on four sides. Sacrifices were made to
Leizu, wife of China’s Yellow Thearch, the first of the Five
Legendary Emperors. The imperial ritual was the only one
performed by the empress. Not surprisingly, the site is known
for its mulberry trees, the main diet of silkworms. Admiration
of Silkworms Hall and Washing Silkworms Pool are behind
the altar.
Although no city in China still proclaims its imperial past
to the extent of Beijing, imperial Chang’an and Luoyang in
Han and Sui-Tang times, capitals of dynasties between those
times, and imperial cities of Song, Liao, Jin, and Yuan had
spaces for worshiping the ancestors of the ruling family and
altars for making supplications to soil and grain. There was an
altar for worship of the heavens in Tang Luoyang. Through the
ages, scholars at court read texts and knew that for China to
be strong, the ancestors, the gods on high, and natural forces
had to be venerated. Powerful rulers with visions into the
futures of their lines transformed their capitals into cities
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 Chapter 13
punctuated with altars that brought the emperor from his pal-
ace to the inner and outer cities and even beyond the capital
walls. Emperors were altar builders as well as city builders.
Hongwu, Yongle, Jiajing, and Qianlong were largely responsi-
ble for the imperial architecture in Nanjing and Beijing, most
of which survived into the twentieth century. In chapter 15 we
shall see that Qing emperors built another significant city with
their own breed of ritual architecture, and in chapter 17 we
shall read about the struggles between nonimperial citizens of
China and a nonimperial government to save or destroy these
testaments to China’s most powerful rulers.
Like Nanjing, Beijing required imperial tombs. Also as in
Nanjing, those tombs relied on past models. These final leg-
acies of imperial Chinese death were marked in ways very
similar to those that had proclaimed the final resting places of
emperors for millennia.
Thirteen Ming Tombs
Thirteen Ming emperors and twenty-three empresses or
concubines are buried in Changping county in an area known
as the tomb valley, approximately 50 kilometers northwest of
the Forbidden City. It is the first Chinese imperial necropolis
since the Western Han royal cemetery that has only one
approach for all the tombs.
Not only does Yongle have the largest tomb, all construc-
tion is directed toward it. The first monument along the
approach to the valley is a five-entry, stone ceremonial arch-
way (pailou or paifang), 28.86 meters wide and 14 meters high,
not built until the reign of Jiajing, the emperor who added
the outer city to Beijing and redirected or added worship at
so many of the imperial altars. Modeled after a wooden struc-
ture, the pailou has lintels and six sets of brackets between the
pillars that define each bay, as well as an imitation ceramic tile
roof. Behind it is the three-entry Red Gate, probably built in
1425, which at one time was the entrance to a wall-enclosed,
40-square-kilometer funerary compound. The gate has a sign
that instructs officials to dismount from this point, a feature
we have observed in other imperial architecture. Next is a
stele pavilion that contains the largest stele in China. Praises
by Yongle’s son and successor were inscribed on it in 1425,
although the 7.91-meter-high stele was not erected until 1435,
during the reign of Yongle’s grandson. It rests on a tortoise
base, a foundation that designates imperial stele. Qianlong
240
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 240
also wrote commemorative poems here. The pavilion is open
on four sides, and a marble huabiao (ceremonial pillar around
which dragons spiral) stands at each side.
The spirit path, just over a kilometer long, comes next.
Beginning with two hexagonal stone columns, twelve pairs of
standing and kneeling, real and fanciful, animals follow. There
the road bends. Twelve pairs of officials come next, four mil-
itary, four civil, and four imperial councilors. One continues
approximately 5 more kilometers, crossing water twice as one
does along the approach to Ming-Qing Beijing, before reach-
ing Changling, eternal royal tomb, the tomb of Yongle and his
first empress and the same name the first Han emperor used
for his tomb in Chang’an.
Every feature, except the specific statues on the spirit path,
follows the precedent of Hongwu’s Xiaoling. As at Hongwu’s
tomb and imperial altars, the circle and the quadrilateral dom-
inate space. Also as at imperial altars, gates, stele pavilions, and
buildings for animal sacrifices are part of the individual impe-
rial tomb complex: a triple-entry gate joins the wall enclosing
the three courtyards that approach the circular tomb mound;
east of the gate is a stele pavilion, and directly behind, a larger,
five-bay gate that is the architectural prelude to the main sac-
rificial hall, the Hall of Spiritual Favors (Ling’endian).
The Hall of Spiritual Favors, begun in 1409, is one of the
three premier diantang in Beijing (see figure i.2). (The second
is the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the third is the Hall for
Worship of the Ancestors [see figures i.1, 13.10]). The Hall of
Spiritual Favors is the largest building in China made of nanmu
(Machilus nanmu), a fragrant wood that grows in Sichuan.
Transport to Beijing was by the Yangzi River, and then along
the Grand Canal. Nine bays by four (66 by 29 meters), like the
Halls of Supreme Harmony and Worship of the Ancestors, it
is raised on a triple-tier marble dais and has two sets of roof
eaves. The roof, of course, is hipped. The center of this struc-
ture is at the intersection of diagonal lines plotted at ground
level from the corners of its courtyard, and, like the Forbidden
City, Altar to Heaven, and Ancestral Temple complexes, the
plan of the three courtyards in front of the mound is based on
a 5-zhang module.
Every detail of the Hall of Spiritual Favors identifies it as a
Ming structure. Inside one sees a complete grid of columns of
equal height and a ceiling of identical lattices above the entire
space, and the timber frame comprises exclusively straight
pieces of wood. The rigidity of an early Ming wooden frame is
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 The Chinese Imperial City
13.12. Hall of Spiritual Favors,
interior
more pronounced because the pillars are natural wood, a fea-
ture associated with the somber mood of funerary architecture
(figure 13.12). The columns are 6.68 meters high, one-tenth the
width of the hall across its front.
As at the Western Han tombs where a single approach to
the oldest tomb is shared by the entire tomb complex, the
layout of burials may follow the zhaomu system described in
Zhou texts. Yongle’s son and successor Hongxi (r. 1424–1425)
was buried to his right. Yongle’s grandson Xuande (r. 1425–
1435) was then buried to his left. Zhengtong (r. 1435–1449 and
1457–1464), the fourth emperor to rule from Beijing, who was
captured by the Mongols during his reign in 1449 in a situation
known as the Tumu Incident, lies on Yongle’s right, farther
west than Hongxi. Zhengtong’s younger brother ruled during
the captivity but does not have one of the thirteen designated
royal tombs of the Ming dynasty. The fifth tomb belongs to
Chenghua (r. 1464–1487), Zhengtong’s successor, and here,
as had occurred in Han Chang’an, the zhaomu system breaks
down. The sixth and seventh tombs, belonging to Hongzhi
(r. 1487–1505) and Zhengde (r. 1505–1521), respectively, are yet
farther to the east. Jiajing (r. 1521–1567) has the eighth tomb,
to the west, and closer to Changling (only 1.5 kilometers to the
southeast) than all earlier tombs except those of Yongle’s son
and grandson. During his long reign, the man who redefined
the imperial altar system and nearly doubled the size of the
capital spent more than thirty years constructing his tomb.
The three-courtyard approach and nearly perfectly circular
mound are comparable in size to Yongle’s. His three-entry gate
and stele pavilion survive, as does the altar originally inside
the hall for funerary sacrifices. Less remains of the ninth tomb,
that of Longqing (r. 1567–1572), in a new area south of the west-
ern group, southeast of Changling and roughly symmetrical
241
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 241
to the tomb of his father, Jiajing, with respect to Changling.
Perhaps one thus observes in the second half of the sixteenth
century an attempt to return to the zhaomu system.
Much of the aboveground architecture of the Ming tombs is
restored. Underground, only one tomb has been excavated. It
is Dingling, the tomb of Wanli (r. 1572–1620), the tenth Ming
emperor, who was named crown prince at age six, ascended
the throne at ten, and ruled for forty-eight years. The tomb
was constructed between 1584 and 1590. In 1956 a lucky dis-
covery helped excavators: a weakness in the enclosing wall
revealed a brick labeled suidaomen (gate to the entrance ramp).
Subsequently a stone inscribed with directions to the tomb
chambers was found. The intent probably was so that future
builders would know the way to bring additional corpses or
burial goods into it.26 This inscription should be compared
with the one on the bronze plate at the tomb of King Cuo of
the Zhongshan kingdom (see figure 2.7) as evidence that it was
assumed when a royal tomb was constructed that future gener-
ations would need to know about it.
The underground area consists of six chambers; all but the
entry are enormous. The three main rooms behind the entrance
are highly polished marble, as are two side chambers joined to
the central room by corridors. All five large rooms are vaulted.
Their floors, paved with bricks that were fired for 130 days and
then dipped in tung oil to give them a golden sheen, occupy an
area of 1,195 square meters. Upon excavation, the front hall was
empty, but the central chamber had three thrones: Wanli’s at
the back facing the tomb entrance and one for each of his wives.
The three vermilion-lacquer coffins are in the back chamber.
The arrangement of space follows the dictum in “Kaogongji”
observed in earlier imperial architecture above and below
ground of hall of audience in front, private chambers behind.
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 Chapter 13
13.13. Air view of Manchu imperial city in Shenyang, Liaoning, begun 1625
Some believe the side chambers were built for future wives
who might be taken by the emperor. The more than 2,600 grave
goods in this tomb have been moved to museums.
Wanli’s successor (Taichang) died a month after his
enthronement. His small tomb is between those of the sec-
ond and fourth Ming emperors ruling from Beijing, on the
western side of Changling. It is one of the tombs at which
one crosses water, reminiscent of the bridges in the Forbidden
City, between the funerary hall and tumulus complex. The
next Ming emperor (Tianqi) is buried on the east, near the
tomb of the eighth Beijing Ming ruler. The last Ming emperor
(Chongzhen) committed suicide and was buried outside the
tomb valley. He was reinterred in the southwestern corner
of the Ming complex by order of the first Qing emperor. The
above-mentioned emperor Jingtai, who ruled while his older
half-brother Zhengtong was in captivity, was buried with
princely status when he died in 1457. He later received impe-
rial burial, meaning that the rituals for a deceased emperor
were performed at this tomb, but he was interred in Beijing’s
Western Hills, not the Ming tomb valley.
Qing Imperial Architecture
The official end of the Ming dynasty was brought about by a
major tactical error. Seeking help to quell a popular uprising
led by Li Zicheng that had begun in Shaanxi, the Ming general
Wu Sangui turned to the Manchus, who had been engaged in
border fights with the Ming for some twenty years. Upon Li’s
entry into Beijing, Ming emperor Chongzhen hung himself. Li
Zicheng set up a dynasty, and subsequently Wu Sangui set up a
dynasty, but by 1644 the Manchu dynasty Qing was established
in the Forbidden City. By this time, the Manchus had engaged
in city building for nearly thirty years.
242
Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 242
Imperial Cities in Liaoning
Beginning in 1616 a group known as Hou (Later) Jin, a
reference to the lands of their nativity from whence the Jin
dynasty also had risen, confederated in Manchuria. In the same
year Nurhaci (1559–1626) began attacks against the Ming. He
established a city that might be considered a capital at Hetu’ala
in Liaoning. In 1618 he moved his power base to Jiefanshan,
and two years after that, farther south in Liaoning, to Sa’erhu
(today in Fushun county). In 1621 he moved his center to
Liaoyang, formerly the eastern capital of Liao and Jin, and
in 1625 he began construction of the most important Manchu
capital, in today’s Shenyang, a city known in the twentieth
century as Mukden.
A walled city stood when Nurhaci got there. Walled by Liao,
destroyed by Jin, walled by Yuan and again by Ming in 1388,
Nurhaci’s capital had twelve gates, four at the corners and two
at each side, in contrast to three on each wall face that was
more standard for China. It was about 16 kilometers in perim-
eter. Naming it Shengjing, he expanded the existing city to
the south, east, and west and built his new palace area slightly
north of the old city center.
The arrangement is unique among imperial cities associated
with China. The palace area comprised three parallel court-
yards and an area of 63,000 square meters, but only the eastern
section was completed during Nurhaci’s lifetime (figure 13.13).
An octagonal building named Great Affairs (Dazheng) Hall
where Nurhaci was enthroned and conducted affairs of state
is the focus of this sector. Five pairs of pavilions define an
approach to it. All four-sided, those closest to Dazheng Hall
were for the left-wing and right-wing princes. The other eight
were for each of the eight banners into which the Manchu
people were divided. At the very front was another pair of
pavilions for performance. Every building used the platform,
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 The Chinese Imperial City
13.14. Manchu ancestral tomb site,
Xinbin, Liaoning
wooden-pillar-support system, bracket sets, and golden
ceramic tile roofs of Chinese imperial architecture.
The central area was begun in 1632 and completed during
the reign of Nurhaci’s son Hong Taiji (r. 1626–1643). It had a
more traditional Chinese imperial arrangement of front gate
(Great Qing Gate, a name used before the name Qing was
taken for the dynasty); Chongzheng Hall, which became Hong
Taiji’s main hall of audience; Fenghuang (Phoenix) Pavilion;
and Qingning Hall, where the emperor resided. Surrounding
it were six symmetrically placed residential palaces with yet
more residential space for the imperial household to either
side. The western sector was added under Qianlong. Consisting
of three courtyards, it included important buildings such
as a stage for opera and a multistory building where one of
the seven copies of the Siku quanshu (Complete writings of
the four treasuries), the 36,381-volume publication of China’s
most important writings, sponsored by Qianlong, was housed.
The Qing also had palatial architecture at their retreat at
Chengde, in Hebei province. It is discussed in chapter 16.
Four Manchu Royal Tombs in Liaoning
The tombs of the Qing dynasty are in three groups in a total
of six locations. Only one group is in a county of Beijing. All
the tombs, except those of the dynastic ancestors, are in every
way Chinese imperial architecture. The tombs of the Manchu
ancestors are part of the first group, in Liaoning province.
In 1624 Nurhaci built a tomb site for his grandfather, father,
uncle, younger brother, and eldest son, all of whom had prede-
ceased him, about a kilometer from his capital in Liaoyang. In
1598 he had built an ancestral tomb site in Xinbin, Liaoning,
near Hetuala for his great-grandfather and a yet more remote
ancestor of his paternal line. In 1658 the first Qing emperor
to rule from Beijing, Shunzhi, moved the tombs of Nurhaci’s
grandfather and father to Xinbin. Like the eastern sector of
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 243
Nurhaci’s capital Shengjing, it is a unique arrangement, but
as in Shenyang, with Chinese-style buildings (figure 13.14).
Named Yongling (eternal royal tomb), it is entered via a Red
Gate behind which are four stele pavilions. The courtyard ends
at Qiyun (Beginning Transport [presumably of the soul]) Gate,
behind which is the main sacrificial hall, also named Qiyun.
Behind Qiyun Hall, a stairway leads to five funerary mounds.
There is no underground component, suggesting that grave
goods might have been stored inside the mounds.27
Nurhaci and his empress are buried at the third Liaoning
site, the tomb Fuling, east of Shenyang.28 Nestled behind the
Hun River and in front of the Tianzhu mountains, the tomb
divides into four parts: Red Gate at the front, next a spirit
path of six pairs of statues, the only one in China that requires
an ascent of 108 steps (a multiple of nine), a pavilion whose
stele is inscribed by Kangxi, and the area known as “square city
and precious wall” (fangcheng ji baocheng). The first three parts
follow the pattern of the Ming tombs, but the last section is
associated with Qing tombs, the earliest example of the char-
acteristic construction here. Square city is a rectangular wall
that has a tower at each corner and Spiritual Favors (Ling’en)
Gate and Spiritual Favors Hall directly behind it inside the
wall. Spiritual Favors, one recalls, is the name of the sacrificial
hall at Changling, Yongle’s tomb. Minglou (bright tower) is at
the back center of the enclosed area, and a pavilion whose stele
glorifies Nurhaci’s deeds is behind it. Precious Wall, a curved
wall of approximately 270 degrees inside of which the tomb
mound is centered, is directly behind it (figure 13.15).
Zhaoling, the tomb of Hong Taiji and his wife, is north of
Shenyang.29 Begun in 1643 and occupying 4.5 square kilome-
ters, it has nearly the same plan; a pailou (archway) in front,
a pair of pillars in front of the spirit path, and two pairs
of small buildings on the sides of the pathway to Spiritual
Favors Gate are the only features not present at Nurhaci’s
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 Chapter 13
tomb. Topographically, however, it stands on flat ground, so
that an artificial hill had to be added.
Qing Eastern and Western Tombs
Upon the establishment of the Qing capital in Beijing,
Shunzhi (r. 1644–1661) began construction of a necropolis.
Today the royal tombs occupy 48 square kilometers; at one
time during the Qing dynasty they spanned 250 square
kilometers, the largest amount of space given to any royal
cemetery in China. Shunzhi located the necropolis in Zunhua,
125 kilometers northeast of Beijing in Hebei province, in the
direction of his ancestral homeland. By the fall of the Qing
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 244
13.15. Fuling, tomb of Nurhaci and
his wife, Shenyang, Liaoning,
1620s–1630s
13.16. Courtyard, Western Qing
Tombs
dynasty, five emperors, four empresses, and five imperial
concubines were buried there.
Shunzhi began building in 1653. Like the first Ming tomb
outside Beijing, Shunzhi’s tomb starts at a five-entry marble
archway (paifang), this one 31.35 by 12.48 meters. Behind is the
three-entry Red Gate, then a pavilion that houses Shunzhi’s
funerary stele positioned on the back of a turtle and with a
huabiao on each side of the pavilion. Marble pillars mark the
entry to the spirit path behind it that consists of twelve pairs
of animals followed by six pairs of officials. A three-opening
gateway known as Dragon [and] Phoenix Gate comes next. It,
too, is a standard feature of Qing tombs. Some 5,600 meters
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 The Chinese Imperial City
have been passed by this point. Beyond Dragon [and] Phoenix
Gate, the tombs of Shunzhi right behind it and his successor
Kangxi (r. 1662–1722) to the east are similar, and similar to
those of Nurhaci and Hong Taiji: a stele pavilion is followed
by Spiritual Favors Gate and then Spiritual Favors Hall, with
service buildings on either side; a small gate comes next; then
a stone platform with five stone vessels for offerings; then
stairs that lead to a four-sided tower. This area completes the
square city. The Precious Wall enclosing the burial mound is
behind it. Both Shunzhi’s and Kangxi’s tombs require crossing
marble bridges before passing through Spiritual Favors Gate.
The third Qing emperor, Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735), began
planning his tomb to Shunzhi’s right, but in the 1730s he
stopped construction and moved to a new site 120 kilometers
southwest of Beijing. Known as the Western Qing Tombs, this
necropolis came to occupy 80 square kilometers that include
the tombs of four emperors. Like the tombs of his two imme-
diate predecessors, Yongzheng’s tumulus was approached by
bridges over water, then the stele pavilion, Gate and Hall of
Spiritual Favors, two more gates, a marble platform with offer-
ing vessels, square tower, and then the precious circular wall
that extended to that tower.
Yongzheng’s son and successor, Qianlong, is buried at the
Zunhua cemetery. His tomb was built over a fifty-year period
and has been excavated. Like the tomb of Ming emperor Wanli,
the entire interior is marble, but in this case Lamaist Buddhist
imagery and Sanskrit inscriptions are carved on the walls and
vaulted ceilings. Also as in Wanli’s tomb, the emperor’s coffin
is in the back chamber. Coffins of five concubines are in the
chamber with him. Thirty-six more of Qianlong’s concubines
are buried in a complex in a section of the Eastern Qing Tombs
that had been established by Kangxi for concubine burials.
Each is buried in a subterranean tomb under her own mound,
except for two who are buried together. They all share a sacri-
ficial hall and stele pavilion.
The next two Qing emperors, Jiaqing (r. 1796–1820) and
Daoguang (r. 1821–1850), are buried in the Western Tombs
(figure 13.16). Their successors, Xianfeng (r. 1851–1861) and
Tongzhi (r. 1862–1875), are in the eastern complex. Guangxu (r.
1875–1908) is buried in the west, but the dowager who served
as regent and for all intents and purposes reigned for most of
this period, Cixi (r. 1861–1889 and 1898–1908), is buried in
the Eastern Tombs. Her tomb pairs with that of the imperial
wife Ci’an, who became coregent with Cixi of the six-year-old
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Chinese Architecture v03c.indd 245
Tongzhi when his father Xianfeng died in 1861. Cixi was hated
by many, for reasons that will be clear in chapters 16 and 17.
Her tomb was opened and looted. In addition to Shunzhi,
Kangxi, Qianlong, and Xianfeng have complete spirit paths at
the Eastern Tombs. At the Western Tombs, only Yongzheng
has a complete spirit path. The final emperor, Puyi, who offi-
cially reigned from 1909 to 1912, was cremated and buried in
a cemetery in Beijing. In the 1990s his ashes were moved for
reburial to the Western Qing Tombs.
In a few ways, the Qing tombs distinguish themselves from
all earlier imperial burials in China. Some are joint burials of
emperor and empress, while others are separate, for a Qing
tomb was not to be opened after the emperor’s remains were
placed inside. If an emperor died first, his empress would
have a separate tomb nearby; a wife’s tomb could be opened
for interment of an emperor. Every Qing tomb has water in
front and is approached by bridges; mountains are not al-
ways behind the tomb, even though ideally an imperial burial
should be protected with this natural force. The enclosing
circular wall also is distinct. If Beijing deserves its reputation
as the greatest city in the world, it is because of its impe-
rial monuments, most important the Forbidden City, but
moreso because altars and tombs enhance that reputation.
Remarkably, this glory was achieved through buildings of
straight timbers that rigidly adhered to modules and them-
selves were part of modular complexes. As we shall see in
chapter 14, even as we seek to differentiate Ming from Qing,
non-Lamaist religious architecture of Ming and Qing China
is much the same as its palatial models.
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