The Forbidden City was located in the Imperial City during the Yuan dynasty, founded by the Mongols "Mongol (ethnicity)"). Following the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Hongwu moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered the Yuan palaces to be burned. When his son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he returned to establish his capital in Beijing and there began construction in 1406 of what would become the Forbidden City.[3] Construction lasted fifteen years, required the participation of more than a million workers[5] and used materials such as whole logs of the precious wood phoebe zhennan (楠木 nánmù), from the jungles of southwestern China. China, and large blocks of Marble extracted from quarries near Beijing.[6]​ The floors of the main halls were paved with "golden bricks" (金砖 jīnzhuān), which were specially fired in Suzhou kilns.[5]​.

From 1420 to 1644 the Forbidden City was the court of the Ming dynasty, until April 1644 when it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty. Banned before leaving.[8]​ By October the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China and held a ceremony in the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Emperor Shunzhi as ruler of all China under the Qing dynasty.[9]​ The Qing rulers changed the names of some of the City's main buildings, emphasizing "Harmony" instead of "Supremacy",[10]​ and placed bilingual plaques in Chinese and Manchu.[11]​.

In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war.[10] In 1900 the Dowager Empress Cixi fled the Forbidden City during the Boxer Uprising, leaving it to be occupied by forces from the treaty countries until the following year.

Having been the residence of twenty-four emperors—fourteen from the Ming Dynasty and ten from the Qing Dynasty—the Forbidden City ceased to be the political center of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, China's last emperor. Under an agreement with the new government of the Republic of China, Puyi resided in the inner courtyard, while the exterior was dedicated to public use,[12] until he was expelled following a coup d'état in 1924.[13] A year later, the Palace Museum was created in the Forbidden City.[14] In 1933 the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of national treasures from the Forbidden City,[15] and although part of the collection was returned at the end of World War II,[16] another was evacuated to Taiwan in 1947 under orders of Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese civil war. This relatively small but high-quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it was again put on public display as the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.[17] After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, revolutionary zeal caused some damage to be done to the Forbidden City.[18] However, during the Cultural Revolution, further destruction was prevented by Premier Zhou Enlai's commanding an army battalion to guard it.[19]​.

The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO with the name "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties",[20] due to its important role in the development of Chinese culture and architecture. It is currently managed by the Palace Museum, which is carrying out a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore all the buildings and return them to their pre-1912 state.[21] In recent years, the presence of commercial companies in the Forbidden City has caused controversy,[22]​ as is the case of the Starbucks chain store, which opened in 2000 and had to close on July 13, 2007 due to various complaints.[23]​[24]​ The Chinese media also reported in 2006 the news about a couple of souvenir shops that refused to admit Chinese citizens in order to maintain high prices for foreign tourists.[25]​.

Contenido

La Ciudad Prohibida es el mayor complejo palacial superviviente del mundo y cubre 72 hectáreas. Tiene forma de rectángulo, con 961 metros de norte a sur y 753 m de este a oeste, y contiene en la actualidad 980 edificios con 9999 estancias. La Ciudad Prohibida fue diseñada para ser el centro de la antigua ciudad amurallada de Pekín y se inserta dentro de una zona amurallada mayor llamada la Ciudad Imperial "Ciudad Imperial (Pekín)"), que a su vez queda dentro de la Ciudad Interior, que linda por el sur con la Ciudad Exterior.

La Ciudad Prohibida sigue siendo importante en el trazado urbano de la ciudad de Pekín, pues su eje central norte-sur es el eje central de la capital china. Este eje se extiende al sur a través de la Puerta de Tian'anmen hasta la Plaza de Tian'anmen, el centro ceremonial de la República Popular China, y hasta la puerta Yongdingmen. Hacia el norte llega al Parque Jingshan y las torres Gulou y Zhonglou.[26]​ Este eje no está exactamente alineado de norte a sur, pues se desvía algo más de dos grados, y los investigadores creen ahora que fue trazado en la dinastía Yuan para alinearse con Xanadú, la otra capital de su imperio.[27]​.

Walls and doors

The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 7.9 meter high wall and a water-filled moat 6 meters deep by 52 m wide.[28]​ The walls are 8.6 m wide at their base and taper to 6.6 m at the top.[29]​ These walls served as both defensive walls and retaining walls of the City and were built with a rammed earth core covered with three layers of specially made bricks. cooked on both sides and joined with mortar.[30]​.

The predominance of color on the walls from the city's bricks takes place from its meaning; The color red 红 (hóng) in Eastern culture is attributed to good fortune, what is believed to be using this color is called "starting on the right foot".[31]​.

Although its use is loaded with symbolism linked to socialist ideology; When one turns so red, he is considered an example to be followed by society in Chinese Culture. Considering the function to be used in the forbidden city, the use of this reddish material is considered a sign of strength, permanence and a construction to contemplate and a cultural example.[32]​.

There is a tower in each of its four corners (E), all crowned by complex roofs that have seventy-two pinnacles, in imitation of how the Pavilion of Prince Teng and the Pavilion of the Yellow Crane are represented in the Song dynasty paintings.[30] These towers are the most visible part of the City and are the protagonists of numerous legends. One of them says that the craftsmen were not able to rebuild one of the towers after it was dismantled for restoration during the Qing dynasty, and it could only be remade through the intervention of the immortal carpenter Lu Ban.[28]​.

The wall has four doors, one in each section. The main one is the South Gate (A),[33]​ to the north the Gate of Divine Harmony (B) opens, in front of Jingshan Park. The ones in the east and west are called the Glorious Gate of the West (C) and the Glorious Gate of the East (D). All of these entrances are closed by double-leaf doors decorated with rows of nine by nine golden nails, except for the east door, which only has eight rows of nails.[34]​.

The southern entrance, the main one, is flanked by two wings that come forward, closing three sides of the quadrangular square (Wumen Square) that opens before it.[35] The entrance has five gates, the central one of which is part of the Imperial Way, a cobbled road that forms the central axis of the Forbidden City and Beijing itself, and leads from the China Gate in the south to Jingshan in the north. Only the emperor could walk or ride along the Imperial Way, with the exception of the empress on her wedding day and successful students on the day of their Imperial Examination.[34]

• - Tower in one of the corners of the Forbidden City.

• - Northwest corner tower.

• - The Gate of Divine Harmony, the northern access. The lower sign reads “Palace Museum” (故宫博物院).

• - The Glorious Eastern Gate under renovation as part of the 16-year restoration process.

Outdoor patio

Traditionally the Forbidden City is divided into two zones: the Outer Courtyard (外朝) or Front Courtyard (前朝) includes the southern sections and was used for ceremonial purposes; The Inner Court (内廷) or Back Palace (后宫) houses the northernmost sections and was the residence of the emperor and his family, and the location of daily affairs of state. A red line marks the approximate division between these two areas on the map on the right. Likewise, the Forbidden City was drawn with three vertical axes, the most important of which is north-south, where the most important buildings are located.[34]​.

Entering through the South Gate we find a large plaza crossed by the Golden Water River, which has five bridges. At the end of the square opens the Gate of Supreme Harmony (F), behind which stands the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Hall of Preservation of Harmony (保和殿).[37]​.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony (G) is the largest, reaching a height of thirty meters above the level of the plaza that surrounds it, in addition to being the ceremonial center of imperial power and the largest wooden structure in all of China. It has nine bays "Crujía (architecture)") wide and five stories high, the numbers nine and five that are symbolically connected to the majesty of the emperor.[38]​ Inserted in a cell in the center of the hall is an ornately decorated throne with a spiral dragon from whose jaws emerge metal balls as a candelabra, called the "Xuanyuan Mirror."[39]​ In the Ming dynasty the emperor had his court here to to deal with state affairs, although during the Qing dynasty, when more state meetings were held, its location was moved to a less ceremonious location and the Hall of Supreme Harmony was reserved for more solemn purposes such as coronations, investitures, and imperial weddings.[40]

The Central Hall of Harmony is smaller, with a square floor plan, and was used by the emperor to prepare for ceremonies and rest before and during their performance.[41] Behind it, ceremonies were rehearsed in the Hall of the Preservation of Harmony and it was also the place for the final stage of the Imperial Examination.[42] All three halls have imperial thrones, although the largest and most elaborate of all is the Hall of Supreme Harmony.[43]

In the center of the ramps that lead to the terraces on the north and south sides there are ceremonial ramps, part of the Imperial Way, decorated with ornate and symbolic bas-reliefs. The north ramp, behind the Hall of Preservation of Harmony, is carved from a single piece of stone 16.5 meters long, 3 m wide, 1.7 m thick and weighing two hundred tons, making it the largest carving in all of China. which was discovered in the century when secular deterioration made its joint more visible.[44]​.

Towards the southwest and southeast of the Outer Court are the halls of Military Eminence (H) and Literary Glory (J). The first was used on several occasions by the emperor to receive his ministers and hold courts, and later used to house the palace's own printing press. The second was reserved for ceremonial readings by reputed Confucian scholars and in later periods was the office of the Grand Secretariat. A copy of the , the largest collection of books in Chinese history, was also stored here. To the northeast are the Three Southern Palaces (南三所) (K), residence of the crown prince.[36]​.

inner courtyard

The Inner Courtyard is separated from the Outer Courtyard by a rectangular plaza laid out perpendicular to the main axis of the Forbidden City. It was the residence of the emperor and his family, and in the Qing dynasty the emperors lived and worked there exclusively, leaving the Outer Court solely for ceremonial purposes.[45]

In the center of the inner courtyard there is another set of three rooms (L). From the south, they are the Palace of Heavenly Purity (乾清宮), the Hall of Union, and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Smaller than the halls of the Outer Court, they were the official residence of the emperor and empress. The emperor, representing Yang and the Heavens, occupied the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The empress, who represented Yin and Earth, resided in the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Among them was the Hall of Union, where Yin and Yang mix to produce harmony.[46]​.

The Palace of Heavenly Purity is a double-eaves building built on a single-level marble terrace and is connected to the Gate of Heavenly Purity to the south by an elevated walkway. In the Ming Dynasty it was the residence of the emperor, but starting with Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty, the sovereign resided in the smaller Hall of Mental Cultivation, located to the west, out of respect for the memory of Emperor Kangxi. Honor» (正大光明; zhèngdàguāngmíng).[48]​.

The Palace of Earthly Tranquility (坤宁宫) is also a two-eave covered building, nine bays wide and three stories high. During the Ming dynasty it was the residence of the empress, while in the Qing a large part of the palace was converted for shamanistic worship by the new Manchu rulers. Since the reign of Emperor Yongzheng the Empress moved into the Palace, although two rooms of the Palace of Earthly Tranquility were retained to be used on the Emperor's wedding night.[49]

Between these two palaces is the Hall of the Union, with a square floor plan and pyramidal roof "Pyramid (geometry)"). The twenty-five Imperial Seals of the Qing Dynasty, as well as other ceremonial objects, are stored here. Behind these three rooms is the Imperial Garden (M). Relatively small and compact in design, this garden nevertheless contains various examples of elaborate landscaping. To the north of the garden is the Gate of Divine Harmony, the northern gate of the palace. Distributed to the east and west of the three main halls are a series of secondary courtyards and minor palaces where the emperor's sons and concubines lived.

Directly to the west we find the Hall of Mental Cultivation (N), which was originally a minor palace but became the de facto residence and office of the emperor from Yongzheng. In the last decades of the Qing dynasty, the empress dowagers, including Cixi, held courts in the eastern part of the hall. Situated around the Hall of Mental Cultivation are the offices of the Grand Council "Great Council (Qing Dynasty)") and other key government agencies.[51]​.

Religion

Religion was an important part of the life of the imperial court. In the Qing Dynasty the Palace of Earthly Tranquility became a place for Manchu shamanistic ceremonies. At the same time, the native Chinese Taoist religion continued to play an important role throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, and for its worship there were two Taoist temples, one in the imperial garden and another in the central area of ​​the inner courtyard.[53] Another important religion in the Qing dynasty palace was Buddhism. Several temples and sanctuaries were created in the inner courtyard, including that of Tibetan Buddhism or Lamaism. Buddhist iconography also proliferated in the interior decoration of many buildings,[54]​ of which the Pavilion of the Rain of Flowers is a good example, as it contains numerous Buddhist statues, "Icon (religion)") icons and mandalas distributed according to ritual purposes.[55]​.

Surroundings

The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. To the north is Jingshan Park, an artificial hill created from earth taken from the moat and nearby lakes.[56] To the west is Zhongnanhai, an ancient garden around two connected lakes that currently serves as the headquarters of the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. To the northwest it borders Beihai Park, a very popular place among Pekingese also centered by a lake connected to the two to the south.

In the south of the Forbidden City there are two important shrines, the Imperial Family Shrine (太庙 Tàimiào) and the Imperial State Shrine (太社稷 Tàishèjì), where the emperor could worship the spirits of his ancestors and the spirit of the nation, respectively. Today they are the Cultural Hall of the Working People of Beijing[57]​ and Zhongshan Park, the latter in commemoration of Sun Yat-sen.[58]​ Also to the south are two nearby and identical gates arranged on the central axis that leads to the main entrance to the City: the Vertical Gate (端门 Duānmén) and the more famous Tian'anmen Gate, decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in its center and posters on both sides that read "Long live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the great unity of the people of the world." The Tian'anmen Gate connects the Forbidden City complex with the modern and symbolic center of the Chinese state, Tian'anmen Square.

Although urban development is now strictly controlled around the Forbidden City, over the past century uncontrolled demolitions and reconstructions, sometimes politically motivated, have changed the character of the areas surrounding the palace complex. Since 2000, the Beijing municipal government has worked to prevent government and military institutions from occupying some historic buildings, and has established a park around the remaining parts of the Imperial City Wall. In 2004 an ordinance regarding building heights and restrictions on urban planning was renewed to establish the area of ​​the Imperial City and the north of the City as an isolation zone for the Forbidden City. A year later the Imperial City and Beihai (as part of the Summer Palace extension) were included in the list to be next World Heritage Sites in Beijing.[60]

Symbolism

During the Shang, Tang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, emperors selected colors as symbols, based on the theory of the five elements, which corresponded to the colors black, red, blue-green, white and yellow (the colors of nature).

The design of the Forbidden City, from its general plan to the smallest detail, was meticulously devised to reflect philosophical and religious principles, and above all as a symbol of the majesty of imperial power. Some notable examples of symbolic design are:.

• - Yellow is the color of the emperor. Therefore, almost all the roofs of the Forbidden City have yellow glazed tiles, and there are only two exceptions: the library in the Pavilion of Literary Depth (文渊阁), which has black tiles because that color is associated with water and therefore prevents fires, and the residences of the crown prince, which have green tiles because that color is associated with wood and, therefore, with growth.[38]​.

• - The main halls of the inner and outer courtyards are all arranged in groups of three, the shape of the Qian trigram representing Heaven. On the other hand, the residences in the inner courtyard are grouped six by six, the shape of the Kun trigram that represents the Earth.[28]​.

• - The roof crests are decorated with lines of statues led by a man riding a phoenix and followed by an imperial dragon. The number of these statues represents the status of the building, as a secondary building has three or five. The Hall of Supreme Harmony has ten, the only building in the entire country that was allowed this in imperial times. As a result, his tenth statue, called "Hangshi" or "tenth", (行十 Hángshí)[61]​ is also unique in the Forbidden City.[62]​.

• - The design of buildings respects the ancient customs established in the Classic of Rites, so the ancestral temples are in front of the palace, the storage areas in the front of the complex and the residential areas in the back.[63]​.

• - After the Ming Dynasty, their descendants were allowed to use the color red for their homes and the color yellow on their roofs. But common people were assigned blue bricks or tiles for their houses, or white walls with black roofs.[64]​.

The Palace Museum's collections are based on the Qing imperial collection. According to the results of a 1925 audit,[65] the Forbidden City stored 1.17 million objects. In addition, the imperial libraries housed one of the largest collections of ancient books and miscellaneous documents in the entire country, including papers from the governments of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Since 1933, the threat of the Japanese invasion forced the evacuation of the most important parts of the Museum's collection. After the end of the Second World War in 1945 this collection was returned to Nanjing, but with the victory of the communists in the subsequent Chinese civil war in 1949, the Nationalist government decided to send a selection of this collection to the island of Taiwan. Of the 13,427 boxes of objects evacuated, 2,972 are currently in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Almost ten thousand boxes were returned to Beijing, but 2,221 remain today in storage under the care of the Nanjing Museum.[17] After 1949 the Museum carried out a new audit, as well as an exhaustive search of the Forbidden City, uncovering a significant number of objects. In addition, the government took pieces from other museums around the country to replenish the collection of the National Palace Museum, which also purchased some and received private donations.[66]​.

Today the Palace Museum has more than one million unique and invaluable works of art in its permanent collection,[67][68]​ including paintings, ceramics, inscriptions, bronze objects and court documents. According to an inventory of the collection carried out between 2004 and 2010, the Palace Museum has a total of 1,807,558 objects, of which 1,684,490 are pieces designated as "valuable cultural relics" protected at the national level.[69]​.

The Palace Museum has 340,000 pieces of ceramics and porcelain, including the imperial collections of the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty, as well as pieces commissioned by the palace and sometimes by the emperor personally. The Palace Museum also has around 320,000 pieces of porcelain from the imperial collection. The rest is almost all stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Nanjing Museum.[70]​.

The Palace Museum has about 50,000 paintings. Of these, more than four hundred date from before the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), making it the largest collection of its kind in China.[70] The collection is based on the palace collection of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The personal interest of emperors like Qianlong led to the palace housing one of the most important collections of paintings in Chinese history. However, an important part of this collection was lost over the years. After his abdication, Puyi removed many paintings from the palace, which were lost or destroyed, and in 1948 many objects were taken to Taiwan. The collection has subsequently been completed through donations, purchases and transfers from other museums.

The Palace Museum's bronze collection dates back to the early Shang dynasty. Of the nearly 10,000 pieces that make it up, 1,600 date from before the Qin period (221 BC). An important part of this collection are bronze ceremonial objects from the imperial court.[70]​.

The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of mechanical watches of the centuries and existing in the world, with more than a thousand pieces, both Chinese and made abroad. The Chinese watches were made in the palace's own workshops, in Canton "Canton (China)") or in Suzhou, while the foreign ones come from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Switzerland or Japan, although the majority are British.[70]​.

Jade has a unique place in Chinese culture.[71]​ The museum's collection, mostly from the imperial collection, includes some 30,000 pieces. The collection of works from before the Yuan Dynasty includes several world-famous pieces and objects from recent archaeological excavations. The oldest ones date back to the Neolithic, while those from the Ming and Qing dynasties were for palace use, in some cases tributes coming from across the empire and beyond.[70]​.

In addition to works of art, a large part of the museum's collection consists of items from the imperial court, including items used by the imperial family and the palace in daily life, as well as various ceremonial and bureaucratic objects important for government administration. This extensive collection illustrates daily life and ceremonial protocols of the imperial era.[70]​.

• - Portal:World Heritage. Content related to World Heritage.

• - World Heritage Site in China.

• - Art of China.

• - Wikimedia Commons hosts a multimedia category on the Forbidden City.

• - Official website of the Beijing Palace Museum (in Chinese and English).

• - Website of the National Palace Museum, in Taipei (several languages).

The Forbidden City was located in the Imperial City during the Yuan dynasty, founded by the Mongols "Mongol (ethnicity)"). Following the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Hongwu moved the capital from Beijing in the north to Nanjing in the south, and ordered the Yuan palaces to be burned. When his son Zhu Di became the Yongle Emperor, he returned to establish his capital in Beijing and there began construction in 1406 of what would become the Forbidden City.[3] Construction lasted fifteen years, required the participation of more than a million workers[5] and used materials such as whole logs of the precious wood phoebe zhennan (楠木 nánmù), from the jungles of southwestern China. China, and large blocks of Marble extracted from quarries near Beijing.[6]​ The floors of the main halls were paved with "golden bricks" (金砖 jīnzhuān), which were specially fired in Suzhou kilns.[5]​.

From 1420 to 1644 the Forbidden City was the court of the Ming dynasty, until April 1644 when it was captured by rebel forces led by Li Zicheng, who proclaimed himself emperor of the Shun dynasty. Banned before leaving.[8]​ By October the Manchus had achieved supremacy in northern China and held a ceremony in the Forbidden City to proclaim the young Emperor Shunzhi as ruler of all China under the Qing dynasty.[9]​ The Qing rulers changed the names of some of the City's main buildings, emphasizing "Harmony" instead of "Supremacy",[10]​ and placed bilingual plaques in Chinese and Manchu.[11]​.

In 1860, during the Second Opium War, Anglo-French forces took control of the Forbidden City and occupied it until the end of the war.[10] In 1900 the Dowager Empress Cixi fled the Forbidden City during the Boxer Uprising, leaving it to be occupied by forces from the treaty countries until the following year.

Having been the residence of twenty-four emperors—fourteen from the Ming Dynasty and ten from the Qing Dynasty—the Forbidden City ceased to be the political center of China in 1912 with the abdication of Puyi, China's last emperor. Under an agreement with the new government of the Republic of China, Puyi resided in the inner courtyard, while the exterior was dedicated to public use,[12] until he was expelled following a coup d'état in 1924.[13] A year later, the Palace Museum was created in the Forbidden City.[14] In 1933 the Japanese invasion of China forced the evacuation of national treasures from the Forbidden City,[15] and although part of the collection was returned at the end of World War II,[16] another was evacuated to Taiwan in 1947 under orders of Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang was losing the Chinese civil war. This relatively small but high-quality collection was kept in storage until 1965, when it was again put on public display as the core of the National Palace Museum in Taipei.[17] After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, revolutionary zeal caused some damage to be done to the Forbidden City.[18] However, during the Cultural Revolution, further destruction was prevented by Premier Zhou Enlai's commanding an army battalion to guard it.[19]​.

The Forbidden City was declared a World Heritage Site in 1987 by UNESCO with the name "Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties",[20] due to its important role in the development of Chinese culture and architecture. It is currently managed by the Palace Museum, which is carrying out a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore all the buildings and return them to their pre-1912 state.[21] In recent years, the presence of commercial companies in the Forbidden City has caused controversy,[22]​ as is the case of the Starbucks chain store, which opened in 2000 and had to close on July 13, 2007 due to various complaints.[23]​[24]​ The Chinese media also reported in 2006 the news about a couple of souvenir shops that refused to admit Chinese citizens in order to maintain high prices for foreign tourists.[25]​.

Contenido

La Ciudad Prohibida es el mayor complejo palacial superviviente del mundo y cubre 72 hectáreas. Tiene forma de rectángulo, con 961 metros de norte a sur y 753 m de este a oeste, y contiene en la actualidad 980 edificios con 9999 estancias. La Ciudad Prohibida fue diseñada para ser el centro de la antigua ciudad amurallada de Pekín y se inserta dentro de una zona amurallada mayor llamada la Ciudad Imperial "Ciudad Imperial (Pekín)"), que a su vez queda dentro de la Ciudad Interior, que linda por el sur con la Ciudad Exterior.

La Ciudad Prohibida sigue siendo importante en el trazado urbano de la ciudad de Pekín, pues su eje central norte-sur es el eje central de la capital china. Este eje se extiende al sur a través de la Puerta de Tian'anmen hasta la Plaza de Tian'anmen, el centro ceremonial de la República Popular China, y hasta la puerta Yongdingmen. Hacia el norte llega al Parque Jingshan y las torres Gulou y Zhonglou.[26]​ Este eje no está exactamente alineado de norte a sur, pues se desvía algo más de dos grados, y los investigadores creen ahora que fue trazado en la dinastía Yuan para alinearse con Xanadú, la otra capital de su imperio.[27]​.

Walls and doors

The Forbidden City is surrounded by a 7.9 meter high wall and a water-filled moat 6 meters deep by 52 m wide.[28]​ The walls are 8.6 m wide at their base and taper to 6.6 m at the top.[29]​ These walls served as both defensive walls and retaining walls of the City and were built with a rammed earth core covered with three layers of specially made bricks. cooked on both sides and joined with mortar.[30]​.

The predominance of color on the walls from the city's bricks takes place from its meaning; The color red 红 (hóng) in Eastern culture is attributed to good fortune, what is believed to be using this color is called "starting on the right foot".[31]​.

Although its use is loaded with symbolism linked to socialist ideology; When one turns so red, he is considered an example to be followed by society in Chinese Culture. Considering the function to be used in the forbidden city, the use of this reddish material is considered a sign of strength, permanence and a construction to contemplate and a cultural example.[32]​.

There is a tower in each of its four corners (E), all crowned by complex roofs that have seventy-two pinnacles, in imitation of how the Pavilion of Prince Teng and the Pavilion of the Yellow Crane are represented in the Song dynasty paintings.[30] These towers are the most visible part of the City and are the protagonists of numerous legends. One of them says that the craftsmen were not able to rebuild one of the towers after it was dismantled for restoration during the Qing dynasty, and it could only be remade through the intervention of the immortal carpenter Lu Ban.[28]​.

The wall has four doors, one in each section. The main one is the South Gate (A),[33]​ to the north the Gate of Divine Harmony (B) opens, in front of Jingshan Park. The ones in the east and west are called the Glorious Gate of the West (C) and the Glorious Gate of the East (D). All of these entrances are closed by double-leaf doors decorated with rows of nine by nine golden nails, except for the east door, which only has eight rows of nails.[34]​.

The southern entrance, the main one, is flanked by two wings that come forward, closing three sides of the quadrangular square (Wumen Square) that opens before it.[35] The entrance has five gates, the central one of which is part of the Imperial Way, a cobbled road that forms the central axis of the Forbidden City and Beijing itself, and leads from the China Gate in the south to Jingshan in the north. Only the emperor could walk or ride along the Imperial Way, with the exception of the empress on her wedding day and successful students on the day of their Imperial Examination.[34]

• - Tower in one of the corners of the Forbidden City.

• - Northwest corner tower.

• - The Gate of Divine Harmony, the northern access. The lower sign reads “Palace Museum” (故宫博物院).

• - The Glorious Eastern Gate under renovation as part of the 16-year restoration process.

Outdoor patio

Traditionally the Forbidden City is divided into two zones: the Outer Courtyard (外朝) or Front Courtyard (前朝) includes the southern sections and was used for ceremonial purposes; The Inner Court (内廷) or Back Palace (后宫) houses the northernmost sections and was the residence of the emperor and his family, and the location of daily affairs of state. A red line marks the approximate division between these two areas on the map on the right. Likewise, the Forbidden City was drawn with three vertical axes, the most important of which is north-south, where the most important buildings are located.[34]​.

Entering through the South Gate we find a large plaza crossed by the Golden Water River, which has five bridges. At the end of the square opens the Gate of Supreme Harmony (F), behind which stands the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Hall of Preservation of Harmony (保和殿).[37]​.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony (G) is the largest, reaching a height of thirty meters above the level of the plaza that surrounds it, in addition to being the ceremonial center of imperial power and the largest wooden structure in all of China. It has nine bays "Crujía (architecture)") wide and five stories high, the numbers nine and five that are symbolically connected to the majesty of the emperor.[38]​ Inserted in a cell in the center of the hall is an ornately decorated throne with a spiral dragon from whose jaws emerge metal balls as a candelabra, called the "Xuanyuan Mirror."[39]​ In the Ming dynasty the emperor had his court here to to deal with state affairs, although during the Qing dynasty, when more state meetings were held, its location was moved to a less ceremonious location and the Hall of Supreme Harmony was reserved for more solemn purposes such as coronations, investitures, and imperial weddings.[40]

The Central Hall of Harmony is smaller, with a square floor plan, and was used by the emperor to prepare for ceremonies and rest before and during their performance.[41] Behind it, ceremonies were rehearsed in the Hall of the Preservation of Harmony and it was also the place for the final stage of the Imperial Examination.[42] All three halls have imperial thrones, although the largest and most elaborate of all is the Hall of Supreme Harmony.[43]

In the center of the ramps that lead to the terraces on the north and south sides there are ceremonial ramps, part of the Imperial Way, decorated with ornate and symbolic bas-reliefs. The north ramp, behind the Hall of Preservation of Harmony, is carved from a single piece of stone 16.5 meters long, 3 m wide, 1.7 m thick and weighing two hundred tons, making it the largest carving in all of China. which was discovered in the century when secular deterioration made its joint more visible.[44]​.

Towards the southwest and southeast of the Outer Court are the halls of Military Eminence (H) and Literary Glory (J). The first was used on several occasions by the emperor to receive his ministers and hold courts, and later used to house the palace's own printing press. The second was reserved for ceremonial readings by reputed Confucian scholars and in later periods was the office of the Grand Secretariat. A copy of the , the largest collection of books in Chinese history, was also stored here. To the northeast are the Three Southern Palaces (南三所) (K), residence of the crown prince.[36]​.

inner courtyard

The Inner Courtyard is separated from the Outer Courtyard by a rectangular plaza laid out perpendicular to the main axis of the Forbidden City. It was the residence of the emperor and his family, and in the Qing dynasty the emperors lived and worked there exclusively, leaving the Outer Court solely for ceremonial purposes.[45]

In the center of the inner courtyard there is another set of three rooms (L). From the south, they are the Palace of Heavenly Purity (乾清宮), the Hall of Union, and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Smaller than the halls of the Outer Court, they were the official residence of the emperor and empress. The emperor, representing Yang and the Heavens, occupied the Palace of Heavenly Purity. The empress, who represented Yin and Earth, resided in the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. Among them was the Hall of Union, where Yin and Yang mix to produce harmony.[46]​.

The Palace of Heavenly Purity is a double-eaves building built on a single-level marble terrace and is connected to the Gate of Heavenly Purity to the south by an elevated walkway. In the Ming Dynasty it was the residence of the emperor, but starting with Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty, the sovereign resided in the smaller Hall of Mental Cultivation, located to the west, out of respect for the memory of Emperor Kangxi. Honor» (正大光明; zhèngdàguāngmíng).[48]​.

The Palace of Earthly Tranquility (坤宁宫) is also a two-eave covered building, nine bays wide and three stories high. During the Ming dynasty it was the residence of the empress, while in the Qing a large part of the palace was converted for shamanistic worship by the new Manchu rulers. Since the reign of Emperor Yongzheng the Empress moved into the Palace, although two rooms of the Palace of Earthly Tranquility were retained to be used on the Emperor's wedding night.[49]

Between these two palaces is the Hall of the Union, with a square floor plan and pyramidal roof "Pyramid (geometry)"). The twenty-five Imperial Seals of the Qing Dynasty, as well as other ceremonial objects, are stored here. Behind these three rooms is the Imperial Garden (M). Relatively small and compact in design, this garden nevertheless contains various examples of elaborate landscaping. To the north of the garden is the Gate of Divine Harmony, the northern gate of the palace. Distributed to the east and west of the three main halls are a series of secondary courtyards and minor palaces where the emperor's sons and concubines lived.

Directly to the west we find the Hall of Mental Cultivation (N), which was originally a minor palace but became the de facto residence and office of the emperor from Yongzheng. In the last decades of the Qing dynasty, the empress dowagers, including Cixi, held courts in the eastern part of the hall. Situated around the Hall of Mental Cultivation are the offices of the Grand Council "Great Council (Qing Dynasty)") and other key government agencies.[51]​.

Religion

Religion was an important part of the life of the imperial court. In the Qing Dynasty the Palace of Earthly Tranquility became a place for Manchu shamanistic ceremonies. At the same time, the native Chinese Taoist religion continued to play an important role throughout the Ming and Qing dynasties, and for its worship there were two Taoist temples, one in the imperial garden and another in the central area of ​​the inner courtyard.[53] Another important religion in the Qing dynasty palace was Buddhism. Several temples and sanctuaries were created in the inner courtyard, including that of Tibetan Buddhism or Lamaism. Buddhist iconography also proliferated in the interior decoration of many buildings,[54]​ of which the Pavilion of the Rain of Flowers is a good example, as it contains numerous Buddhist statues, "Icon (religion)") icons and mandalas distributed according to ritual purposes.[55]​.

Surroundings

The Forbidden City is surrounded on three sides by imperial gardens. To the north is Jingshan Park, an artificial hill created from earth taken from the moat and nearby lakes.[56] To the west is Zhongnanhai, an ancient garden around two connected lakes that currently serves as the headquarters of the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. To the northwest it borders Beihai Park, a very popular place among Pekingese also centered by a lake connected to the two to the south.

In the south of the Forbidden City there are two important shrines, the Imperial Family Shrine (太庙 Tàimiào) and the Imperial State Shrine (太社稷 Tàishèjì), where the emperor could worship the spirits of his ancestors and the spirit of the nation, respectively. Today they are the Cultural Hall of the Working People of Beijing[57]​ and Zhongshan Park, the latter in commemoration of Sun Yat-sen.[58]​ Also to the south are two nearby and identical gates arranged on the central axis that leads to the main entrance to the City: the Vertical Gate (端门 Duānmén) and the more famous Tian'anmen Gate, decorated with a portrait of Mao Zedong in its center and posters on both sides that read "Long live the People's Republic of China" and "Long live the great unity of the people of the world." The Tian'anmen Gate connects the Forbidden City complex with the modern and symbolic center of the Chinese state, Tian'anmen Square.

Although urban development is now strictly controlled around the Forbidden City, over the past century uncontrolled demolitions and reconstructions, sometimes politically motivated, have changed the character of the areas surrounding the palace complex. Since 2000, the Beijing municipal government has worked to prevent government and military institutions from occupying some historic buildings, and has established a park around the remaining parts of the Imperial City Wall. In 2004 an ordinance regarding building heights and restrictions on urban planning was renewed to establish the area of ​​the Imperial City and the north of the City as an isolation zone for the Forbidden City. A year later the Imperial City and Beihai (as part of the Summer Palace extension) were included in the list to be next World Heritage Sites in Beijing.[60]

Symbolism

During the Shang, Tang, Zhou and Qin dynasties, emperors selected colors as symbols, based on the theory of the five elements, which corresponded to the colors black, red, blue-green, white and yellow (the colors of nature).

The design of the Forbidden City, from its general plan to the smallest detail, was meticulously devised to reflect philosophical and religious principles, and above all as a symbol of the majesty of imperial power. Some notable examples of symbolic design are:.

• - Yellow is the color of the emperor. Therefore, almost all the roofs of the Forbidden City have yellow glazed tiles, and there are only two exceptions: the library in the Pavilion of Literary Depth (文渊阁), which has black tiles because that color is associated with water and therefore prevents fires, and the residences of the crown prince, which have green tiles because that color is associated with wood and, therefore, with growth.[38]​.

• - The main halls of the inner and outer courtyards are all arranged in groups of three, the shape of the Qian trigram representing Heaven. On the other hand, the residences in the inner courtyard are grouped six by six, the shape of the Kun trigram that represents the Earth.[28]​.

• - The roof crests are decorated with lines of statues led by a man riding a phoenix and followed by an imperial dragon. The number of these statues represents the status of the building, as a secondary building has three or five. The Hall of Supreme Harmony has ten, the only building in the entire country that was allowed this in imperial times. As a result, his tenth statue, called "Hangshi" or "tenth", (行十 Hángshí)[61]​ is also unique in the Forbidden City.[62]​.

• - The design of buildings respects the ancient customs established in the Classic of Rites, so the ancestral temples are in front of the palace, the storage areas in the front of the complex and the residential areas in the back.[63]​.

• - After the Ming Dynasty, their descendants were allowed to use the color red for their homes and the color yellow on their roofs. But common people were assigned blue bricks or tiles for their houses, or white walls with black roofs.[64]​.

The Palace Museum's collections are based on the Qing imperial collection. According to the results of a 1925 audit,[65] the Forbidden City stored 1.17 million objects. In addition, the imperial libraries housed one of the largest collections of ancient books and miscellaneous documents in the entire country, including papers from the governments of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Since 1933, the threat of the Japanese invasion forced the evacuation of the most important parts of the Museum's collection. After the end of the Second World War in 1945 this collection was returned to Nanjing, but with the victory of the communists in the subsequent Chinese civil war in 1949, the Nationalist government decided to send a selection of this collection to the island of Taiwan. Of the 13,427 boxes of objects evacuated, 2,972 are currently in the National Palace Museum in Taipei. Almost ten thousand boxes were returned to Beijing, but 2,221 remain today in storage under the care of the Nanjing Museum.[17] After 1949 the Museum carried out a new audit, as well as an exhaustive search of the Forbidden City, uncovering a significant number of objects. In addition, the government took pieces from other museums around the country to replenish the collection of the National Palace Museum, which also purchased some and received private donations.[66]​.

Today the Palace Museum has more than one million unique and invaluable works of art in its permanent collection,[67][68]​ including paintings, ceramics, inscriptions, bronze objects and court documents. According to an inventory of the collection carried out between 2004 and 2010, the Palace Museum has a total of 1,807,558 objects, of which 1,684,490 are pieces designated as "valuable cultural relics" protected at the national level.[69]​.

The Palace Museum has 340,000 pieces of ceramics and porcelain, including the imperial collections of the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty, as well as pieces commissioned by the palace and sometimes by the emperor personally. The Palace Museum also has around 320,000 pieces of porcelain from the imperial collection. The rest is almost all stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei and the Nanjing Museum.[70]​.

The Palace Museum has about 50,000 paintings. Of these, more than four hundred date from before the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), making it the largest collection of its kind in China.[70] The collection is based on the palace collection of the Ming and Qing dynasties. The personal interest of emperors like Qianlong led to the palace housing one of the most important collections of paintings in Chinese history. However, an important part of this collection was lost over the years. After his abdication, Puyi removed many paintings from the palace, which were lost or destroyed, and in 1948 many objects were taken to Taiwan. The collection has subsequently been completed through donations, purchases and transfers from other museums.

The Palace Museum's bronze collection dates back to the early Shang dynasty. Of the nearly 10,000 pieces that make it up, 1,600 date from before the Qin period (221 BC). An important part of this collection are bronze ceremonial objects from the imperial court.[70]​.

The Palace Museum has one of the largest collections of mechanical watches of the centuries and existing in the world, with more than a thousand pieces, both Chinese and made abroad. The Chinese watches were made in the palace's own workshops, in Canton "Canton (China)") or in Suzhou, while the foreign ones come from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Switzerland or Japan, although the majority are British.[70]​.

Jade has a unique place in Chinese culture.[71]​ The museum's collection, mostly from the imperial collection, includes some 30,000 pieces. The collection of works from before the Yuan Dynasty includes several world-famous pieces and objects from recent archaeological excavations. The oldest ones date back to the Neolithic, while those from the Ming and Qing dynasties were for palace use, in some cases tributes coming from across the empire and beyond.[70]​.

In addition to works of art, a large part of the museum's collection consists of items from the imperial court, including items used by the imperial family and the palace in daily life, as well as various ceremonial and bureaucratic objects important for government administration. This extensive collection illustrates daily life and ceremonial protocols of the imperial era.[70]​.

• - Portal:World Heritage. Content related to World Heritage.

• - World Heritage Site in China.

• - Art of China.

• - Wikimedia Commons hosts a multimedia category on the Forbidden City.

• - Official website of the Beijing Palace Museum (in Chinese and English).

• - Website of the National Palace Museum, in Taipei (several languages).