Forbidden City

The Forbidden City is a walled imperial palace complex in central Beijing, China, built between 1406 and 1420 under the Yongle emperor. It served as the principal ceremonial and residential palace of the Ming and Qing dynasties, accommodating the courts of 24 emperors. Its succession of gates, courtyards, audience halls, residences, and gardens gave architectural form to imperial authority and the organization of court life. (whc.unesco.org)

Covering approximately 72 hectares, the complex is a major surviving example of Chinese palatial architecture, combining axial planning, timber construction, hierarchical decoration, and landscaped enclosures. Its buildings preserve evidence of changing administrative practices, religious observances, artistic patronage, and domestic arrangements across five centuries. The Forbidden City was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1987; the designation was extended in 2004 to include the Qing imperial palace at Shenyang. (whc.unesco.org)

Since 1925, the complex has housed the Palace Museum, whose collections and research connect the former imperial residence with the wider history of Chinese art and material culture. Its modern history encompasses the transformation of a restricted court into a public institution, the wartime evacuation and subsequent division of imperial collections, and continuing efforts to conserve historic buildings and traditional craftsmanship. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Names, Boundaries, and Urban Setting

The Chinese name Zijin Cheng (紫禁城), conventionally translated as “Purple Forbidden City,” associates the emperor’s earthly residence with the celestial imperial domain. In traditional Chinese astronomy, the Ziwei yuan, or Purple Forbidden Enclosure, occupied the region around the north celestial pole and was understood as the dwelling of the heavenly sovereign. Imperial palaces consequently acquired names invoking zi, “purple,” through this celestial association. Jin, “forbidden,” referred to restrictions on entry, while cheng designated the walled enclosure. The name thus expressed both the palace’s cosmological position and its separation from ordinary urban space, rather than describing the predominant colour of its buildings. (dpm.org.cn)

Gugong (故宫), “former palace,” names the same complex from a different historical perspective: it identifies a surviving palace after its imperial use. In Beijing the term ordinarily denotes the palace of the Ming and Qing emperors. It should nevertheless be distinguished from Gugong Bowuyuan, the Palace Museum, the institution inaugurated on 10 October 1925. The museum administers the historic architecture and palace remains while collecting, researching, conserving, and exhibiting cultural objects. “Forbidden City” therefore identifies the architectural and historical site; “Palace Museum” identifies an institution whose responsibilities encompass both that site and its collections, rather than a name applicable to all periods of palace government and residence. (dpm.org.cn)

Within historical Beijing, the Forbidden City formed a distinct palace enclosure inside the larger Imperial City. The southern approach makes these nested boundaries particularly clear. Tiananmen, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, belonged to the Imperial City’s boundary, not to the Forbidden City’s own wall. From Tiananmen the axial route continued north through Duanmen, the Upright Gate, before reaching Wumen, the Meridian Gate, which marked entry into the palace enclosure proper. Offices and waiting quarters historically lined parts of this approach. Thus passing through Tiananmen did not itself constitute entry into the Forbidden City: the approach crossed successive urban and ceremonial thresholds before reaching the palace gate. (dpm.org.cn)

The palace enclosure measures approximately 961 metres north–south by 753 metres east–west. UNESCO records the Beijing palace component of the World Heritage property as 72 hectares, equivalent to approximately 720,000 square metres. This is a site-area figure, encompassing courtyards, gardens, circulation spaces, and buildings; it is not the combined floor area of the halls and residential compounds. The Palace Museum’s English account gives approximately 163,000 square metres for the buildings of the Outer and Inner Courts, a separate measure that should not be substituted for the palace’s overall extent. (ggzl.dpm.org.cn)

The palace’s principal north–south alignment forms part of the larger Beijing Central Axis, rather than an isolated line confined to its walls. Immediately north stands Jingshan, also known historically as Prospect Hill or Coal Hill; southward, the axial approach connects the palace with Duanmen and Tiananmen. The broader axis originated with the Yuan capital of Dadu and was developed under the Ming and Qing. The Forbidden City consequently occupies the centre of a much larger composition of palaces, gardens, ceremonial buildings, and urban routes, while retaining its own precisely bounded enclosure. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Foundation and Construction under the Ming

The Yongle emperor, Zhu Di, initiated the palace project in 1406 as part of the development of Beijing into the northern centre of Ming government. Having seized the throne in 1402, he initially retained Nanjing as his capital. His earlier residence in the north as Prince of Yan, together with the strategic importance of confronting the remaining Mongol powers, helped shape the decision to build in Beijing. The 1406 decree launched the procurement of timber and bricks and the mobilization of craftsmen, soldiers, and civilian labourers; it marks the beginning of the construction programme rather than fourteen uninterrupted years of building on site. The palace was completed in 1420. (dpm.org.cn)

The design drew on successive generations of Chinese palace planning, not a wholly new architectural scheme. Its immediate Ming precedents included the imperial palace at Nanjing and the unfinished central capital at Fengyang: planning developed at Fengyang informed alterations at Nanjing, whose palace subsequently provided the model for Beijing. The Palace Museum also identifies the hierarchical architectural conventions of the Tang and Song dynasties as part of this inheritance. Axial sequences of gates and halls, enclosed courtyards, and distinctions between ceremonial and residential space translated differences of function and status into built form. These precedents concerned the ordering of entire compounds as much as the appearance of individual buildings. (dpm.org.cn)

Construction required an administrative organization capable of coordinating separate supplies and trades. In 1417 the emperor established a supervisory agency under Chen Gui, Marquis of Taining; work on the principal Fengtian Hall and the Palace of Heavenly Purity began that year. Procurement extended well beyond Beijing. Brick production drew on the Linqing and Suzhou kiln systems, while stone and lime came principally from the mountains around the capital. White stone for steps, balustrades, and imperial ramps was quarried at Dashiwo in Fangshan, and roofing tiles were fired in Beijing. These arrangements linked the preparation of materials to the successive requirements of foundations, masonry, timber construction, roofing, and surface finishing. (img.dpm.org.cn)

Surviving architecture provides evidence for the technical coordination involved, although its components must be dated individually. The East Prosperity Gate was founded in 1420, while its timber construction, roof components, painted surfaces, and adjoining masonry illustrate the different crafts brought together within a single architectural unit. The southeast corner tower likewise makes the complexity of palace timber assembly visible. The Palace Museum’s architectural gallery distinguishes timber structures, tilework, architectural painting, and stonework, and exhibits components alongside drawings and models. Such evidence helps explain construction methods, but later design drawings and replacement components cannot automatically be treated as records of the Yongle building campaign. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

The completion date therefore identifies the establishment of the palace complex, not the age of every structure now standing. The three principal audience halls—then named Fengtian, Huagai, and Jinshen—burned in 1421, immediately after the original campaign. Their reconstruction began in 1440 and was completed in 1441; the craftsman-official Kuai Xiang participated in this rebuilding. This distinction is especially important when assigning named builders to particular phases: work on the fifteenth-century palace included both its initial construction and substantial replacements within a generation. (dpm.org.cn)

Ming Alterations and Qing Reconfiguration

Successive Ming and Qing building campaigns preserved the palace’s principal north–south sequence while changing the fabric, boundaries, and functions of individual compounds. Continuity of plan therefore did not mean that every structure survived unchanged from 1420. A documented Ming intervention occurred at Qin’an Hall in 1535, when the Jiajing emperor added enclosing walls and Tianyi Gate. These additions made the existing Daoist sanctuary into a more clearly separated courtyard within the Imperial Garden: the alteration reorganized access and enclosure rather than replacing the palace’s main axial scheme. (whc.unesco.org)

The Qing court established itself in Beijing in 1644 and adapted the inherited palace to Manchu court practices. In 1655, under the Shunzhi emperor, the Palace of Earthly Tranquility, or Kunning Gong, was remodelled after Qingning Palace at the dynasty’s earlier seat in Shenyang. The changes affected both circulation and architectural detail: the principal entrance shifted from the central bay to the bay immediately east of it, and traditional Manchu window forms replaced the earlier lattice doors and windows. Interior arrangements likewise departed from the Ming symmetrical scheme. The building became a principal setting for court shamanic sacrifices, while imperial wedding observances were subsequently held there according to Manchu custom. This was a selective transformation of a prominent inherited palace, not a wholesale replacement of the Ming residential complex. (dpm.org.cn)

Reconstruction could also reproduce a building’s ceremonial position while replacing its physical structure. After the Hall of Supreme Harmony burned in 1679, rebuilding was delayed while the court pursued military priorities and secured suitable timber. The Palace Museum’s construction history records thirteen years of material preparation before work began in 1695 under the Kangxi emperor. Completion followed in 1697, establishing the hall’s surviving form. Its location continued the inherited ceremonial sequence, but the standing building belongs to this late-seventeenth-century reconstruction rather than to the original Yongle-period campaign. (dpm.org.cn)

The Qianlong emperor introduced substantial additions and functional changes within the enclosure. In 1738, his former residence in the second of the Five Western Lodgings was elevated to Chonghua Palace; an adjoining compound became its kitchen, while the first lodging became Shufang Studio and received a theatre stage. In 1742, the fourth and fifth lodgings were converted into Jianfu Palace and its garden. These interventions broke the earlier correspondence between the eastern and western groups of princely residences. A separate major project, the Palace of Tranquil Longevity precinct, was completed in 1776 for Qianlong’s anticipated retirement. It combined spaces for audiences, residence, worship, recreation, and theatrical performance, enlarging the palace’s specialized facilities without moving its principal ceremonial axis. (dpm.org.cn)

Late Qing construction also experimented with materials outside the dominant timber-building tradition. Begun in 1909 within the Palace of Prolonging Happiness, or Yanxi Gong, Lingzhao Pavilion—known as the “Crystal Palace”—combined metal, glass, and masonry. Fire safety was among the reasons for adopting stone and metal rather than a conventional wooden frame. The project incorporated imported materials, including British structural steel beams and German ceramic tiles, alongside Chinese architectural and decorative elements. Construction stopped following the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, leaving the pavilion unfinished. (dpm.org.cn)

Spatial Organization and Architectural Hierarchy

The Forbidden City is organized around a north–south axis, with principal halls occupying the centre and subsidiary buildings arranged bilaterally to east and west. This ordering operates at several scales: across the palace as a whole, within its major precincts, and inside individual courtyard compounds. The southern Outer Court contains the Halls of Supreme, Central, and Preserving Harmony; the northern Inner Court repeats the three-building sequence with the Palace of Heavenly Purity, Hall of Union, and Palace of Earthly Tranquility. The Six Eastern and Six Western Palaces flank the Inner Court’s central group. Symmetry thus establishes a hierarchy of central and subsidiary positions rather than making every building an identical counterpart of another. UNESCO identifies the central axis, symmetrical arrangement, and placement of the outer court before the inner court as defining features inherited from Chinese palace planning. (whc.unesco.org)

Courtyards organize movement through this arrangement. The approach to the principal ceremonial halls passes through successive gates and open spaces, whereas residential compounds subdivide space into smaller enclosures bounded by halls, side buildings, corridors, and walls. The resulting progression changes both the scale of the surroundings and the relationship between an approaching visitor and the ruler: broad ceremonial courts accommodate collective attendance, while successive residential thresholds separate particular households and activities. The Gate of Heavenly Purity forms the principal passage between Outer and Inner Courts. This division was not equivalent to a modern separation between workplace and home: the Inner Court contained administrative and religious spaces as well as residences, and the gate itself served as a setting for Qing imperial hearings and ceremonies. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Architectural rank was expressed through combinations of breadth, height, roof form, and ornament. The Hall of Supreme Harmony has an eleven-bay frontage and five-bay depth, covers 2,377 square metres, and rises to 35.05 metres including its platform. Its elevated position and double-eaved hipped roof distinguish it from the smaller buildings around it. Closely spaced brackets, hexi architectural painting, gilded dragon ornament, and elaborate roof-ridge figures reinforce that distinction. Gates also participate in this graded composition: the Gate of Supreme Harmony is nine bays wide and has a double-eaved hip-and-gable roof, whereas the Gate of Heavenly Purity is five bays wide with a single-eaved hip-and-gable roof. Their contrasting dimensions make the transition between the monumental ceremonial precinct and the more compact inner precinct physically legible. (dpm.org.cn)

The same differentiation continues inside residential compounds. In the Palace of Assisting the Earth, or Yikun Palace, the principal hall is five bays wide with a yellow-glazed hip-and-gable roof; its eastern and western subsidiary halls are each three bays wide with hard-gabled roofs. The principal hall’s Suzhou-style architectural painting also differs from the hexi decoration of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Yellow glazing therefore does not by itself identify a building’s precise rank: position, dimensions, roof profile, platform, and decorative treatment must be read together. These distinctions structure an individual residence as well as the palace’s largest ceremonial ensemble. (dpm.org.cn)

The bilateral plan nevertheless preserves alterations rather than an unchanged geometric scheme. In 1859, the entrance gate of the Palace of Eternal Spring was removed and the rear hall of the adjoining Qixiang Palace converted into a passage hall, connecting previously separate compounds. A comparable late Qing alteration linked Yikun Palace with the Palace of Gathered Elegance: its rear hall became the Hall of Manifest Harmony, and side rooms were opened as passages, producing a four-courtyard sequence. Empress Dowager Cixi received birthday congratulations there after moving to the Palace of Gathered Elegance in 1884. Such changes retained the larger axial framework while redirecting circulation and enlarging particular residential precincts. (dpm.org.cn)

Walls, Gates, and Controlled Access

The palace enclosure measures approximately 961 metres north–south and 753 metres east–west, bounded by walls about 10 metres high and an external moat 52 metres wide. These barriers marked the palace’s own perimeter, rather than the boundary of the larger Imperial City within Beijing. Four corner towers completed the defensive enclosure. First constructed in 1420 and subsequently repaired under the Qing dynasty, they combine practical boundary defence with elaborate architectural display: each has a cross-shaped plan and a compound, yellow-glazed roof with three tiers of eaves. Their projecting wings accommodate the junctions of the adjoining walls, with shorter projections outside the enclosure than inside. (dpm.org.cn)

Four principal gates interrupt this perimeter: the Meridian Gate (Wumen) on the south, the Gate of Divine Prowess (Shenwumen) on the north, and the East and West Prosperity Gates (Donghuamen and Xihuamen) on their respective sides. The Meridian Gate occupies the principal north–south axis, beyond the separate approach through Tiananmen and Duanmen. Completed in 1420 and repaired in 1647 and 1801, it has a U-shaped plan, with projecting wings framing the approach. Its 12-metre-high masonry platform contains three central passageways and two lateral passages; above it rise a nine-bay gatehouse, connecting galleries, and subsidiary pavilions. The gate therefore provided both a physical checkpoint and a monumental setting for imperial appearances and ritual. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Passage through the Meridian Gate was explicitly differentiated by status. The central opening was reserved for the emperor, with exceptional privileges allowing an empress to enter in her bridal sedan chair and the three highest-ranking graduates of the palace examination to leave after their results were announced. Civil and military officials used the eastern passage, while imperial princes used the western one; the two lateral passages opened for major occasions. These rules made the route through a single building an expression of rank, rather than treating everyone admitted to the palace as entitled to the same access. (dpm.org.cn)

The northern gate served a different pattern of movement. Originally named Xuanwumen in 1420, it became Shenwumen when rebuilt during the reign of the Kangxi emperor, avoiding a character in his personal name, Xuanye. Its three arched passages supported a five-bay gatehouse. It was an important entrance for everyday palace traffic, and candidates in the Qing court’s triennial selection of consorts entered through a side passage there. Its bell and drum also regulated palace time: after dusk, 108 bell strokes preceded the drum announcing the night watches, although the bell was not sounded when the emperor was residing inside. (dpm.org.cn)

The eastern and western gates likewise combined controlled circulation with ceremonial distinctions. Both have three arched passages beneath rectangular gatehouses; outside Donghuamen, dismounting stelae required approaching riders to proceed on foot. Under the Qing, the coffins of deceased emperors, empresses, and empress dowagers left through Donghuamen. Admission also depended on credentials, not masonry alone: a Palace Museum compilation records Chen Rujian entering that gate in 1746 with another person’s waist token, and Bai Da entering Xihuamen in 1851 with a borrowed eunuch’s token. These recorded breaches show the operational importance—and vulnerability—of checking authorization at the palace boundary. (dpm.org.cn)

The Outer Court and Ceremonial Halls

The Gate of Supreme Harmony (Taihe men) marks the principal entrance to the Outer Court’s central ceremonial precinct. Beyond it, a broad courtyard leads northward to the Hall of Supreme Harmony (Taihe dian), followed by the Hall of Central Harmony (Zhonghe dian) and the Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohe dian). These “Three Great Halls” stand on a continuous, three-tiered white-stone platform enclosed by carved balustrades. Their elevated position distinguishes them from the surrounding courts and subsidiary buildings; the Belvederes of Embodying Benevolence and Spreading Righteousness flank the principal ceremonial space to east and west. The approach combines horizontal distance across the courtyard with an ascent toward the emperor’s throne, making architectural scale and elevation instruments of ceremonial hierarchy. (dpm.org.cn)

The Outer Court’s monumental halls principally accommodated grand audiences and state ritual, rather than every aspect of imperial government. The Hall of Supreme Harmony hosted accession ceremonies, imperial wedding observances, the installation of empresses, and ceremonies commissioning generals for military expeditions. On the emperor’s birthday, the lunar New Year, and the winter solstice, civil and military officials presented formal congratulations. These occasions must be distinguished from routine audiences and administrative work: under the Ming dynasty, the Gate of Supreme Harmony itself served as a setting for morning audiences, while the Inner Court also contained important administrative venues. During much of the Qing dynasty, the Hall of Mental Cultivation combined imperial residence with the handling of daily government business. (dpm.org.cn)

The Hall of Supreme Harmony was the palace’s highest-ranking ceremonial building. Its frontage extends across eleven structural bays, with five bays in depth, and its floor area is approximately 2,377 square metres. A double-eaved hipped roof crowns the hall, while its three-tiered stone base rises 8.13 metres; the combined height of hall and platform is 35.05 metres. This conjunction of an exceptionally broad façade, elevated foundation, and imposing roof established its precedence over neighbouring buildings. Inside, a centrally placed throne is flanked by six gilded columns decorated with dragons. On the terrace outside stand a sundial, a standard measuring vessel, bronze tortoises and cranes, and eighteen bronze vessels, extending the ceremonial furnishings beyond the interior into the approach to the throne. (dpm.org.cn)

The smaller, square Hall of Central Harmony occupied an intermediate position both spatially and functionally. Before proceeding to major ceremonies in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the emperor could rest and prepare there and receive the obeisance of officiating personnel. It also supported preparations for ceremonies outside the palace: before sacrifices at major state altars, the emperor inspected ritual texts or ceremonial materials there. Its compact form and single-eaved pyramidal roof contrast with the elongated, double-eaved principal hall, differentiating a space of preparation from the setting for the larger ceremonial assembly. (s.visitbeijing.com.cn)

The northernmost Hall of Preserving Harmony served several distinct ceremonial purposes. Under the Ming, emperors changed into ceremonial robes there before major observances. Under the Qing, it accommodated banquets for princes, high officials, and representatives of the empire’s outer dependencies, notably on lunar New Year’s Eve and the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. In 1789, during the Qianlong emperor’s reign, it became the regular venue for the palace examination, the culminating stage of the imperial examination system, normally held every three years. The formal proclamation of successful candidates nevertheless continued at the Hall of Supreme Harmony, separating the examination itself from the public ceremonial announcement of its results. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

The Inner Court and Imperial Residences

The central residential sequence runs northward through the Palace of Heavenly Purity (Qianqing gong), the Hall of Union (Jiaotai dian), and the Palace of Earthly Tranquility (Kunning gong), with the Imperial Garden beyond. These buildings formed the principal axial precinct of the Inner Court, while smaller residential compounds occupied its eastern and western flanks. Heavenly Purity was the emperor’s principal palace during the Ming dynasty and the early Qing dynasty. Nine bays wide and five deep, it stands on a single white-marble platform beneath a double-eaved hipped roof. Its approximately 1,400 square metres of floor area made it the largest building in the central residential group; fourteen Ming emperors, from Yongle to Chongzhen, lived there. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

The axial buildings did not retain identical residential functions throughout their history. Between the two larger palaces, the Hall of Union provided a setting for the empress to receive birthday congratulations; under the Qing it also housed twenty-five imperial seals. Earthly Tranquility, originally the empress’s principal residence, was remodelled in 1655 after the Qing occupation. Much of its interior became a setting for Manchu shamanic observances, while its eastern chamber served imperial wedding ceremonies. Its continued prominence on the residential axis therefore did not mean that successive Qing empresses routinely lived there. The inherited arrangement preserved the architectural pairing of the emperor’s and empress’s principal palaces even as their practical uses changed. (dpm.org.cn)

The Six Eastern and Six Western Palaces housed imperial consorts in separately enclosed compounds on either side of this central sequence. Here “palace” denotes a courtyard establishment rather than a single hall: the characteristic plan comprised two successive courts, with principal buildings facing south and subsidiary accommodation along the east and west sides. Yanxi Palace illustrates the original eastern arrangement particularly clearly. Before its destruction by fire in 1845, it had five-bay principal halls in both courts, each accompanied by three-bay eastern and western wings. Such compounds divided the imperial household into distinct residential units rather than accommodating all consorts within one continuous building. Their names also outlasted individual occupants: Chuxiu Palace, for example, housed Cixi early in her court life and later housed the Tongzhi emperor’s empress following the imperial wedding of 1872. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

A major shift occurred in 1723, when the Yongzheng emperor established his residence in the Hall of Mental Cultivation (Yangxin dian), southwest of Heavenly Purity. Thereafter, this smaller, off-axis precinct became the customary palace residence of the Qing emperors. Its development combined sleeping accommodation with rooms for reading, audiences, and government business, rather than separating residence entirely from administration. Alterations under the Qianlong emperor consolidated this multifunctional arrangement. In 1750, three low ranges were added outside its entrance for eunuchs, guards, and officials on duty; their depth was less than four metres, fitting service accommodation into the narrow approach court. (dpm.org.cn)

Later rebuilding also broke down boundaries between formerly separate western compounds. In 1859, the entrance gate of Changchun Palace was removed and the rear hall of neighbouring Qixiang Palace was converted into a passage hall, joining the two establishments. A comparable transformation accompanied preparations for Empress Dowager Cixi’s fiftieth-birthday celebrations in 1884. Chuxiu Palace’s gate and dividing wall were removed, while Yikun Palace’s rear hall became the through-building called Tihe Hall. The resulting four-courtyard sequence connected reception, dining, and residential spaces; covered galleries linked Chuxiu’s principal hall with its side buildings and Tihe Hall. These interventions changed both circulation and the scale of an individual resident’s accommodation within the inherited Six Western Palaces. (dpm.org.cn)

Government, Household Service, and Daily Life

The distinction between Outer and Inner Courts did not separate government from domestic life. Although the great southern halls accommodated grand audiences and ceremonies, administrative work also took place within the emperor’s residential precincts. Under the Qing dynasty, the Hall of Mental Cultivation combined reception rooms, working chambers, reading spaces, and sleeping accommodation. Its western warm chamber included rooms for reading memorials and confidential discussion with ministers. The building’s internal divisions therefore provided different settings for official audiences, consultation, and personal activities within a single compound, rather than requiring the emperor to conduct all business from a monumental ceremonial throne hall. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

The imperial household was organized through differentiated residences and service assignments. The emperor and consorts occupied distinct compounds, while empresses dowager, princes, and princesses had their own attendants. During the Qing, the Imperial Household Department supervised palace personnel, finances, security, ceremonial arrangements, and the daily requirements of the imperial family. Palace maids were recruited from women belonging to the department’s booi, or bondservant, households; this recruitment was distinct from the selection of bannermen’s daughters as potential consorts or brides for members of the imperial clan. Selected maids were assigned to serve particular members of the family, including the emperor, empress, consorts, and imperial children. Household service was thus an institutional system of recruitment and allocation, not simply an undifferentiated body of servants. (dpm.org.cn)

Food preparation likewise required specialized offices and recorded responsibilities. The imperial kitchen was responsible for the emperor’s food, and menus submitted through Household Department officials identified the cook responsible for individual dishes. The documented Qing pattern included two principal meals, supplemented by snacks and other food served later in the day; ceremonial banquets should not be treated as descriptions of every ordinary meal. Provisioning also extended to service personnel. In March 1763, during the Qianlong emperor’s reign, an imperial order converted an unused seventy-bay building beside the moat outside the East Prosperity Gate into the Enfeng Granary, or “Warehouse of Blessing and Harvest.” It stored the grain allowance for eunuchs, providing a concrete example of how palace employment depended on storage and distribution facilities beyond the residential courtyards. (dpm.org.cn)

Surviving interiors and objects offer evidence for these routines, but their evidential value depends on context. The Hall of Mental Cultivation’s small working rooms and sleeping spaces document the proximity of administration and residence; they do not represent an unchanged arrangement throughout the palace’s history. Furniture also had specific settings and functions: Qianlong directed changes to interior furnishings and assigned pieces to particular environments. The palace collections preserve robes, ornaments, textiles, and furniture alongside historical documents, allowing clothing and room arrangements to be studied together rather than treated only as decorative art. (dpm.org.cn)

The evidence of material culture extends to lamps, fans, mirrors, combs, cosmetic boxes, metal eating and drinking vessels, and ice chests. Such objects support investigation of lighting, grooming, dining, and seasonal comfort, although an object’s survival alone does not establish who used it or how frequently. Provenance is particularly important: the Palace Museum’s daily-use collections consist principally of former Qing holdings but also include later purchases and donations. Documented service arrangements, menus, furnishings, and object histories provide a firmer basis for reconstructing palace routines than later stories that assign private habits or dramatic incidents to rooms without supporting records. (dpm.org.cn)

Religion, Ancestral Worship, and Court Observance

The Hall for Ancestral Worship (Fengxian dian), on the eastern side of the Inner Court, served as the imperial household’s ancestral temple. Established in the early Ming dynasty, it was rebuilt under the Qing in 1657. Its connected front and rear halls accommodated different categories of ritual observance. Under Qing regulations, major sacrifices took place in the front hall on the first and fifteenth days of lunar months, the emperor’s birthday, New Year’s Day, and occasions of national celebration. The rear hall received incense offerings on deceased emperors’ and empresses’ birthdays and death anniversaries, as well as at seasonal festivals. Important court actions—including investitures, departures on imperial tours, and returns to the capital—were also formally announced there, making ancestral observance part of the conduct of dynastic government rather than an activity confined to mourning. (dpm.org.cn)

Daoist worship centered on Qin’an Hall, on the palace’s north–south axis in the Imperial Garden. Dating to the Yongle period, the hall housed the deity Zhenwu. In 1535, the Jiajing emperor enlarged its religious enclosure by adding surrounding walls and Tianyi Gate, establishing a self-contained sanctuary within the garden. Its function was explicitly devotional, not residential or administrative: images, scriptures, offering tables, incense vessels, and ritual implements equipped it for worship. Daoist observances continued under the Qing. At New Year, the emperor offered incense at an altar inside Tianyi Gate, seeking protection for the palace against fire and other disasters. The garden therefore contained an active religious institution alongside its spaces for imperial recreation. (dpm.org.cn)

Qing Buddhist worship occupied several precincts, notably the Zhongzheng Hall complex. In 1749, the Qianlong emperor had Yuhua Pavilion remodeled on earlier Ming foundations following advice from the Third Changkya, a leading Buddhist preceptor at court. Its design drew on the mandala hall of Tholing Monastery in western Tibet. Tibetan religious models were thus incorporated into palace architecture through the patronage of a Manchu emperor and the mediation of a preceptor whom the Palace Museum identifies with the Mongolian religious establishment. The surviving religious collections document further exchanges: Tibetan Buddhist objects reached the court as gifts from Mongolian and Tibetan religious leaders, while imperial workshops produced additional images and furnishings. (dpm.org.cn)

At Fanhua Hall, built in 1772 at the northern end of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity precinct, the arrangement of images translated Buddhist classification into architectural space. This two-story building followed the court’s “six-category Buddhist pavilion” scheme, distributing images, scriptures, stupas, and ritual implements according to six doctrinal categories. One group alone comprised 122 gilt-brass images made by the imperial workshops; their bases carried Chinese deity names and inscriptions identifying their category. Tibetan Buddhist iconography, Chinese-language labeling, and court manufacture were coordinated within a single devotional installation. (dpm.org.cn)

Manchu shamanic observance also transformed residential architecture. In 1655, the Palace of Earthly Tranquility was remodeled after Qingning Palace in Shenyang. Its entrance shifted eastward, while interconnected western rooms acquired platforms along three walls and stoves for preparing sacrificial meat. Formerly the Ming empress’s principal residence, it became a major setting for Qing shamanic ceremonies, including morning and evening offerings and monthly sacrifices. The eastern rooms nevertheless retained a residential and ceremonial role, including use for imperial weddings: the Kangxi emperor performed his wedding rites there in 1665. The altered interior accommodated Manchu sacrificial practice without abandoning the building’s established status within the central palace sequence. (dpm.org.cn)

Gardens and the Qianlong Retirement Precinct

The Imperial Garden occupies the northern end of the central residential sequence, immediately behind the Palace of Earthly Tranquility. First established in 1420 under the Yongle emperor, it covers approximately 12,000 square metres and retains the basic organization of its original layout despite later additions. Qin’an Hall anchors the garden on the palace axis, with pavilions distributed in balanced arrangements to either side. Pines, cypresses, bamboo, ornamental rocks, and patterned pebble paths soften this architectural order without dissolving it. The paired Fubi and Chengrui pavilions span pools, whereas the Wanchun and Qianqiu pavilions combine square bases with rounded upper forms. Intended for imperial recreation, the garden also accommodated reading, book storage, and religious observances. (dpm.org.cn)

Unlike this garden at the head of the principal residential axis, the Qianlong Garden forms an enclosed component of a subsidiary palace precinct in the northeast of the Forbidden City. The Qianlong emperor developed the Palace of Tranquil Longevity, or Ningshou gong, for his anticipated retirement, intending to fulfil his promise not to exceed his grandfather the Kangxi emperor’s sixty-one-year reign. The precinct was completed in 1776. It was not simply a garden residence: its ceremonial halls, residential buildings, and supporting spaces reproduced the distinction between public audience and private life on a smaller scale. The garden occupied only the western route of its rear section; Ningshou gong could therefore designate the larger precinct, while the Garden of the Palace of Tranquil Longevity designated one part of it. (dpm.org.cn)

Built during the precinct’s reconstruction in 1772–1776, the garden occupies a narrow strip approximately 160 metres long and 40 metres wide. Its twenty-seven buildings are organized into four successive courtyard groups. This compact arrangement combines northern imperial architectural formality with the spatial variety and literary associations of southern Chinese gardens. Rather than presenting a single open vista, it distributes rockeries, trees, halls, and pavilions among contrasting enclosures. The Bower of the Ancient Catalpa, or Guhua xuan, takes its name from the old tree before it, making an existing natural feature the focus of an architectural composition. (dpm.org.cn)

The four courtyards differ deliberately in character. The first groups Guhua xuan with rockeries, winding paths, and elevated viewing points. Beyond a hanging-flower gate, the second centres on the Hall of Fulfilling Original Wishes, or Suichu tang: side buildings and connecting corridors define a relatively regular residential court, sparsely planted and accented with ornamental stones. The third substitutes artificial mountain scenery for this openness, using peaks, ravines, tunnels, steps, and a bridge to create routes above and below the rocks. In the fourth, Fuwang ge forms the principal architectural focus, accompanied by smaller buildings including Juanqin zhai, the retirement studio. These changes of enclosure, elevation, and building type create markedly different settings within a confined site. (dpm.org.cn)

Water supplied another carefully constructed literary setting. In the first courtyard, the Xishang Pavilion, built in 1772, contains a winding stone channel twenty-seven metres long, designed for floating wine cups in evocation of Wang Xizhi’s Orchid Pavilion gathering. Water was drawn from a well concealed behind a nearby rockery, raised into a container, and conducted through a hidden channel into the pavilion. Bamboo-patterned decoration reinforced the allusion to the gathering’s wooded setting. Here the combination of hydraulic engineering, rockwork, ornament, and literary reference produced a miniature cultivated landscape rather than an imitation of unrestricted nature. (dpm.org.cn)

Structural Systems, Materials, and Building Crafts

The principal palace halls employ timber framing: columns carry interconnected beams and roof members, while enclosing walls divide and shelter spaces rather than constitute the principal vertical load-bearing system. Beams support purlins, which carry the rafters beneath the roof covering; horizontal ties connect the column grid. Mortise-and-tenon joints unite the wooden members through projecting tenons fitted into corresponding sockets. The distinction between frame and enclosure is visible at the Pavilion of Embodied Benevolence, or Tiren Ge, where timber boarding encloses parts of the upper storey to reduce the weight imposed on the structure below. Columns themselves have differentiated functions: outer eaves columns support the perimeter roof, while inner columns carry loads farther within the building. (ich.unesco.org)

Layered bracket sets, composed of bearing blocks and projecting bracket arms, mediate between columns and the roof structure and support the outward reach of the eaves. They also provide a basis for dimensional coordination. In Qing official construction, the doukou—the width of the opening in the lowest bearing block—served as a module from which component dimensions were calculated. This coordinated the sizes of many separate pieces without making every palace building identical. At the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the plan comprises eleven bays across the façade and five in depth; a bay denotes the interval between neighbouring column axes, not necessarily an enclosed room. Its present form resulted from the reconstruction undertaken in 1695–1697 under the Kangxi emperor. (dpm.org.cn)

Below the timber frame, earthworks, masonry and dressed stone perform complementary tasks. Foundation construction includes compacted lime-and-earth layers, while stone bases provide bearing surfaces beneath columns. Raised platforms combine structural support with worked architectural surfaces; stonecutters shape, finish and install components such as the moulded xumi bases beneath the Hall of Supreme Harmony. These operations belong to distinct but coordinated trades: earthworkers prepare foundations and platform cores, masons and stoneworkers construct their durable supporting and exposed elements, and carpenters erect the superstructure. The Palace Museum’s craft documentation distinguishes foundation earthwork from stone manufacture and installation rather than treating a terrace as a homogeneous block of stone. (dpm.org.cn)

Roofing, wall finishes and painted coatings complete the building envelope. Tilework encompasses brick construction as well as roof tiles; the glazed tiles visible on major halls therefore represent only part of the masonry craft. Protective finishes on timber are likewise built up rather than simply painted onto bare wood. The youzuo trade prepares a ground of oil, putty-like mineral material and hemp fibre, then applies oil-based coatings. Decorative architectural painting is a separate specialization applied to prepared surfaces. Interior papering, or biaohuzuo, covers ceilings, walls, doors and windows: its sequence includes paste preparation, dust removal, backing papers and finishing layers, providing an interior finish with insulating and dust-excluding functions. (ihchina.cn)

These activities are organized as the “eight major crafts”: earthwork, stonework, scaffolding, carpentry, brick-and-tile work, protective oil finishing, decorative painting and papering. Scaffolding supplies the temporary access needed by the other trades, while repair can require reversing the original assembly sequence. At Tiren Ge, investigation identified nine severely decayed columns among forty; replacing an inner column required partial dismantling because twelve members connected to it. Craft knowledge has also passed through named apprenticeships: Li Yongge entered the Palace Museum in 1975 and learned traditional carpentry from Dai Jiqiu and Zhao Chongmao, subsequently participating in repairs to the corner towers, Qin’an Hall and the Hall of Supreme Harmony. (dpm.org.cn)

Water Management, Fire, and Environmental Adaptation

Rainfall drainage depended on the coordination of courtyard gradients, raised building platforms, and underground infrastructure. Survey figures published by palace architectural researcher Jiang Boguang give ground elevations of 46.05 metres at the northern Gate of Divine Prowess and 44.28 metres at the southern Meridian Gate—a fall of 1.77 metres across the enclosure. Within this overall gradient, subsidiary channels collected runoff from individual courtyards and conveyed it into larger drains. Open gutters, covered channels, culverts, and openings through courtyard walls allowed water to pass between otherwise enclosed spaces. East–west branches fed north–south mains, which discharged into the Inner Golden Water River. The system required regular clearance: its performance depended on maintaining connections between paved surfaces, drain entrances, and downstream outlets, rather than on the river alone. (dpm.org.cn)

Foundations and drainage must therefore be understood together, but not as an unchanged installation dating entirely from 1420. Rebuilding altered courtyards, paths, walls, and buried services while retaining the palace’s broad layout. Archaeological recording during repairs documents these changes through exposed foundations, successive pavements, and the relationships between drains and surrounding structures. In projects approved after the Palace Museum’s archaeological institute was established in 2013, investigations examined drainage and rammed-earth construction beside the eastern enclosure wall, as well as drains, paving, earlier building foundations, and stone and earth bedding in the Garden of Compassion and Tranquility. These remains provide physical evidence for successive arrangements below the visible palace and help determine where modern service trenches can be routed without destroying earlier construction. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Fire repeatedly interrupted the continuity of the timber architecture. The Hall of Supreme Harmony, originally completed in 1420 under a different name, burned in 1421 and suffered further destruction in subsequent centuries. Its destruction in 1679 during the reign of the Kangxi emperor was followed by a lengthy period of material preparation: reconstruction entered its building phase in 1695 and was completed in 1697. The surviving hall consequently represents a late-seventeenth-century rebuilding, not an intact early-Ming timber structure. The rebuilding also changed fire separation around the ceremonial halls: former connecting side corridors were replaced by stepped firewalls intended to inhibit the spread of flames. (dpm.org.cn)

Historical firefighting arrangements included large copper and iron vats holding reserve water near palace buildings. Keeping that water usable required adaptation to Beijing winters. Qing palace regulations directed eunuchs to burn charcoal beneath the vats, according to weather conditions, between the solar terms Xiaoxue (“Minor Snow”) and Jingzhe (“Awakening of Insects”). The prescribed daily allowance was four jin of charcoal for a large vat and three for a small one. This practice addressed a specific operational weakness: stored firefighting water could otherwise freeze when needed. (young.dpm.org.cn)

Modern protection supplements these historical provisions with monitoring, inspection, and organized emergency response. The museum’s heritage-monitoring framework includes temperature, relative humidity, wind, rainfall, lightning, and solar radiation, using meteorological data to assess environmental effects and issue warnings of extreme conditions. Its 2014 yearbook records joint fire-safety inspections, training for contractors and staff, and the maintenance of water in selected historical vats where courtyard firefighting supplies were insufficient. These measures distinguish passive architectural responses and manually maintained reserves from systematic risk management for vulnerable timber buildings; UNESCO also identifies minimal intervention and improved scientific and technological protection as management requirements for the property. (dpm.org.cn)

Decorative Arts, Inscriptions, and Imperial Symbolism

Vermilion walls and columns, yellow glazed roofs, blue-and-green painted beams, and pale stone terraces establish a coordinated hierarchy of surfaces. At the Hall of Supreme Harmony, these contrasts distinguish the roof, timber frame, and elevated platform while concentrating elaborate ornament around the ceremonial interior. Architectural painting also had its own hierarchy. In the Qing dynasty, hexi painting was the highest-ranking category: beam decoration was divided into central panels and subsidiary sections, with dragons and phoenixes outlined by raised preparation covered in gold leaf against blue, green, or red grounds. Its patterns followed the divisions of the carpentry rather than covering the building as an undifferentiated ornamental field. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Dragon imagery linked different materials and viewing distances. The great stone ramp behind the Hall of Preserving Harmony presents nine dragons in a single relief composition; inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony, gilded coiling dragons decorate the columns beside the throne, while a dragon holding a pearl occupies the centre of the recessed ornamental ceiling, or caisson. Repetition across carved stone, gilded woodwork, and painted beams made the throne setting the focus of an architectural decorative program. Roof ornaments likewise combined practical and representational functions: the large dragon-shaped ridge terminals sealed the junction between the two roof slopes while furnishing conspicuous sculptural accents. Their architectural purpose should not be displaced by purely symbolic explanations. (dpm.org.cn)

Colour symbolism was applied selectively, not through an invariant palace-wide code. The Pavilion of Literary Profundity, completed in 1776 to house imperial books, has black glazed roof tiles edged in green, rather than the predominant yellow of the principal halls. Black was associated with water in the five-phase cosmological system, and its use expressed the wish that water would overcome fire and protect the collection. The pavilion’s green columns, Suzhou-style painted decoration, patterned wooden balustrades, and carved aquatic animals around its pool distinguish its scholarly setting from the monumental ceremonial halls. A nearby stele bears the Qianlong emperor’s account of the pavilion on one face and his poem commemorating a banquet there on the other, joining architectural symbolism to an explicitly authored inscription. (dpm.org.cn)

In smaller interiors, calligraphy and painting could give a room both its name and its intellectual program. In 1746, Qianlong renamed a chamber in the western warm apartment of the Hall of Mental Cultivation the Hall of Three Rarities, or Sanxi tang. It housed three prized calligraphic works attributed to Wang Xizhi, Wang Xianzhi, and Wang Xun: Timely Clearing after Snowfall, Mid-Autumn, and Letter to Boyuan. These were imperial attributions, not a statement that all three survive as autograph originals. The room’s name also invoked the moral aspiration of the scholar toward the worthy, the worthy toward the sage, and the sage toward Heaven. Qianlong’s calligraphic account of the hall and a painting by Jin Tingbiao depicting the Wang calligraphers connected the displayed works with an imagined lineage of cultivated exemplars. (dpm.org.cn)

Qianlong participated in this literary environment as a maker as well as a patron. His works included a calligraphic reproduction of the Three Rarities, a painted copy of the Elegant Gathering in the Western Garden, and Snowy Vista at Mount Pan. Court production also included Dong Bangda’s Memories of the Hall of the Three Rarities and Zhang Zhao’s transcription of Qianlong’s poetry on reading Han Yu. Such works placed imperial writing, artistic copying, and officials’ responses within a shared court practice; the emperor’s brushwork and poems became subjects for further painting and calligraphy, as well as elements of palace display. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Imperial Collecting, Furnishings, and Artistic Patronage

The Palace Museum’s holdings combine three distinct histories: objects commissioned or accepted for imperial use; older works assembled through imperial collecting; and acquisitions made after the museum’s establishment in 1925. The inherited collections include ancient sacrificial vessels and jades, early paintings and calligraphy, Song- and Yuan-period porcelain, lacquerware, textiles, furniture, and religious images. Their chronological range therefore does not identify them all as products of palace workshops. Subsequent allocations, purchases, and donations further changed the collection’s composition; works such as Lu Ji’s A Consoling Letter (Pingfu tie) and Han Huang’s Five Oxen entered the museum after its foundation rather than passing directly into its custody with the palace furnishings. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Court commissions depended on a geographically distributed production system. Under the Qing dynasty, the Imperial Household Department supervised workshops making objects ordered by the emperor, while artisans recruited from Guangzhou, Suzhou, and elsewhere brought regional skills into imperial service. Furniture production involved specialized woodworking and lacquer workshops, both within and outside the palace. Limited space and staffing in the inner-palace workshops favored small-scale, highly finished work; other establishments supplied larger quantities. Officials also presented furniture as tribute, subject to imperial inspection and acceptance. The surviving objects can consequently be studied alongside workshop and tribute records to distinguish manufacture, presentation, and subsequent placement. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Furnishings were assigned to particular interiors and functions rather than assembled solely as independent artworks. The Yongzheng emperor personally directed furniture production and favored elements associated with the scholar’s studio. Under the Qianlong emperor, costly materials, elaborate craftsmanship, and motifs drawn from Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism contributed to coordinated interior schemes. These commissions extended beyond the Forbidden City to imperial gardens and residences around the capital and at Chengde. The museum’s furniture holdings thus document a wider court environment, not merely objects originally made for the rooms in which they are now exhibited. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Qianlong’s patronage also connected personal artistic practice with the activities of court painters, imperial relatives, and scholar-officials. During his reign, conventionally dated 1736–1795, he promoted the landscape traditions of the Four Wangs and the Changzhou approach to bird-and-flower painting, while encouraging calligraphy based on historical exemplars. Surviving works include his Calligraphic Reproduction of the Three Rarities, paintings copied after earlier compositions, and landscapes such as Snowy Vista at Mount Pan. Officials participated through paintings, calligraphic transcriptions of imperial poetry, and poetic exchanges. These practices placed the emperor within an established literary tradition while making artistic collaboration an expression of the relationship between ruler and court. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Connoisseurship became an administrative undertaking through the compilation of Shiqu baoji, the catalogue of imperial painting and calligraphy. Its first compilation, completed in 1745, contained forty-four volumes; a continuation followed in 1793, and a third compilation in 1816. Together they recorded nearly 10,000 works, including imperial compositions, earlier paintings and calligraphy, and selected rubbings and textiles. The 1793 continuation documented dimensions, materials, signatures, inscriptions, and seals, supplementing description with critical examination. Such cataloguing turned individual acts of appreciation into a durable record of dynastic possession: the collection represented both the emperor’s preferences and the court’s claim to preserve and classify the artistic inheritance of earlier periods. (dpm.org.cn)

From Imperial Residence to Public Museum

The 1911 Revolution ended Qing imperial government, but did not immediately end the palace’s residential use. Puyi abdicated on 12 February 1912; under the settlement with the republican authorities, he retained his imperial title and continued to occupy the Inner Court. Consequently, the Forbidden City’s conversion into a public museum proceeded unevenly: the former emperor’s household remained in the northern residential precinct while public exhibitions developed in the southern Outer Court. Puyi’s residence ended in 1924, following the Beijing coup led by Feng Yuxiang, rather than at the moment of abdication twelve years earlier. (dpm.org.cn)

The principal early exhibition institution was the Antiquities Exhibition Institute, which opened to the public in 1914. Its holdings included more than 200,000 objects transferred from the imperial palaces at Rehe, now Chengde, and Shengjing, now Shenyang. These transfers brought collections from other court establishments into the Forbidden City for custody and display; the exhibitions were therefore not simply an opening of Beijing palace rooms with their existing contents. In 1915, the institute constructed the Baoyun Building on the site of the destroyed Xian’an Palace as a purpose-built repository. Public exhibition and specialized storage thus preceded the foundation of the Palace Museum itself. (dpm.org.cn)

After Puyi’s departure, the Committee for the Disposition of the Qing Imperial Household, led by Li Yuying, also known as Li Shizeng, undertook the administration and inventorying of palace property. On 10 October 1925, a ceremony before the Palace of Heavenly Purity marked the Palace Museum’s inauguration. The museum’s institutional history records a twenty-eight-volume inventory published in 1925 listing more than 1,860,000 items left by the Qing household. Staff separated antiquities, books, and historical documents into collections for sorting and study, while exhibition halls made selected holdings publicly accessible. Inventorying was therefore integral to the transition: palace possessions became documented collections administered by designated museum personnel. (dpm.org.cn)

Museum display subsequently developed along two distinct lines. Historical-interior displays retain or reconstruct the relationship between buildings and furnishings, selecting and arranging objects according to archival evidence; they should not be understood as rooms left entirely untouched since imperial occupation. Specialized galleries instead organize objects by medium, function, or subject. The furniture gallery opened in the Southern Storehouses on 19 September 2018 illustrates the latter approach: its first phase presented more than 300 Qing furnishings in storage-style displays, alongside over thirty selected pieces arranged in settings such as studies and music rooms, using lighting and multimedia interpretation. These installations interpret court material culture through newly designed exhibitions rather than preserve the original function of the storehouses. (dpm.org.cn)

Research, publication, and object conservation became continuing institutional functions. A conservation workshop established in the 1950s expanded into the Conservation Department during the 1980s, combining traditional craft techniques with scientific treatment; repository improvements included humidity control, insect protection, and, in the 1990s, a new environmentally controlled storehouse. Scholarly interpretation also acquired a regular publishing platform: the Palace Museum Journal began in 1958, issued two early numbers in 1958 and 1960, and resumed publication in 1979. Its subjects include collections research, Ming–Qing history, historic architecture, conservation science, and museum studies, extending access to palace evidence beyond the objects and interiors selected for public display. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Wartime Evacuation and the Distribution of Collections

The evacuation began in February 1933, as Japanese military expansion into northern China threatened Beijing, then officially called Beiping. Museum staff selected and packed portable holdings rather than attempting to empty the palace. Between February and May, 13,427 crates and sixty-four bundles were dispatched to Shanghai in five consignments. The railway journey ran south through Zhengzhou, east to Xuzhou, and south again to Pukou, where the cargo was transferred to ships. Objects from other institutions, including the Summer Palace and the Institute for the Exhibition of Antiquities, accompanied later consignments. After purpose-built repositories were completed near Chaotian Palace in Nanjing in 1936, the Shanghai holdings were transferred there; the Palace Museum’s Nanjing branch was established in January 1937. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Full-scale fighting in the Second Sino-Japanese War forced another evacuation from August 1937. Under director Ma Heng, the collections travelled inland along three routes, with destinations repeatedly changed as military conditions deteriorated. The southern consignment comprised eighty crates, many containing works recently exhibited in London. It travelled through Hankou and Changsha, where it was stored in Hunan University’s library, and subsequently through Guiyang to Anshun in Guizhou. Renewed danger in 1944 prompted its removal to Ba County, now within Chongqing. The central route followed the Yangtze through Hankou, Yichang, and Chongqing before reaching Leshan in Sichuan. The northern route passed through Xuzhou and Baoji, crossed into Hanzhong, and continued to Chengdu and finally Emei in 1939. Railways, river steamers, smaller boats, and motor vehicles served different stages of these journeys. (dpm.org.cn)

Evacuation also required continued collection management. Staff accompanied the cargo, maintained inventories, and established local offices at successive storage locations. Ma Heng supervised both the protection of the evacuated holdings and arrangements for their postwar return. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, the dispersed consignments were gathered in Chongqing during 1946–1947 and transported east to Nanjing in 1947. Their return did not immediately reunite them with the collections that had remained in Beijing: Nanjing again became a major storage centre while the Chinese Civil War continued. (dpm.org.cn)

In late 1948, the Nationalist government directed the selection of important works in Nanjing for transfer to Taiwan. Between 22 December 1948 and 22 February 1949, 2,972 crates from the Palace Museum’s holdings were sent in three shipments. These were selected evacuated collections, not the entirety of the palace’s contents. Material from the Preparatory Office of the National Central Museum was also transferred. After arrival, the two institutions’ collections were housed at Beigou, near Taichung, where staff undertook cataloguing, conservation, research, and publication. Meanwhile, much of the Palace Museum material remaining in Nanjing returned to Beijing in transfers made in 1950, 1953, and 1958; a portion remained in Nanjing. (dpm.org.cn)

This history separates the Forbidden City’s immovable palace complex from the portable collections associated with it. The Palace Museum in Beijing occupies the original imperial precinct; the National Palace Museum in Taipei is a separately administered institution whose Waishuangxi premises opened in 1965. Its founding holdings combined the collections brought to Taiwan from the Palace Museum and the National Central Museum, and later acquisitions further enlarged them. Other evacuated palace holdings remained with the Nanjing Museum. The distribution therefore concerns objects and institutional custody, not the relocation of the Forbidden City’s halls, courtyards, or enclosing walls. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Conservation, Heritage Designation, and Public Access

In 1961, China’s State Council included the Forbidden City among the first group of nationally protected priority cultural heritage sites. Inscription on the World Heritage List followed in 1987. In 2004, the designation was extended to include the Qing imperial palace in Shenyang, creating the property titled Imperial Palaces of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing and Shenyang. This extension linked two geographically separate palace complexes within one heritage designation; it did not enlarge the physical boundaries of the Beijing palace. UNESCO recognizes their architectural achievement, interchange of cultural traditions, testimony to imperial civilization, and importance as palace ensembles. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Authenticity in the Forbidden City concerns more than the survival of individual timbers. UNESCO’s assessment emphasizes the retention of layout, design, decoration, wooden construction, and inherited craftsmanship, while the buffer zone protects the complex’s urban setting. Within a building tradition sustained through repair and replacement, these attributes provide a broader framework for assessing interventions than the age of a component alone. Historical written records, drawings, and models also preserve evidence of construction techniques and court arrangements. Architectural conservation and object conservation consequently overlap: furnishings, painted surfaces, textiles, and fitted decoration help establish the historical character of a room rather than merely occupying a protected building. (whc.unesco.org)

The Qianlong Garden provides a detailed example of this relationship. The Palace Museum and the World Monuments Fund began their collaboration in 2000, initially concentrating on Juanqinzhai, the Studio of Exhaustion from Diligent Service. A comprehensive review in 2004 produced a conservation master plan for the garden. Juanqinzhai’s restoration, completed in 2008, addressed silk paintings, jade inlays, and bamboo carvings alongside the architectural interior. Work on Fuwangge, Zhuxiangguan, and Yucuixuan was completed in 2016. The project combined scientific conservation methods with the revival of rare craft techniques, making the treatment of decorative materials integral to the conservation of the buildings themselves. (wmf.org)

The garden’s reopening was partial rather than an unrestricted opening of all four courtyard groups and 27 buildings. Following an inauguration on September 29, 2025, its first and second courtyards opened to the public on September 30. The accompanying exhibition, Artistry and Ingenuity: The History and Conservation of the Qianlong Garden, occupied Suichu tang and its eastern and western side halls. By presenting the garden’s history and restoration within the reopened area, the museum made conservation work part of the visitor’s interpretation of the site, while distinguishing accessible courtyards and exhibition spaces from the garden as a whole. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Visitor circulation has also been treated as a conservation responsibility. On June 13, 2015, the museum began trialling a daily ceiling of 80,000 admissions, supported by advance booking, identity-based ticketing, and a redesigned admissions system. Morning and afternoon booking categories and restrictions on tour-group morning allocations were intended to redistribute arrivals; the system also generated more detailed visitor-flow information for management and heritage monitoring. These were historically dated management measures, not an indication that every interior could accommodate the same level of access. The Qianlong Garden’s phased reopening illustrates a complementary approach: access to selected spaces and interpretive exhibitions can expand without opening every fragile historic room to equivalent visitor traffic. (dpm.org.cn)

Archaeology, Architectural Research, and Cultural Significance

Archaeological investigation reveals changes concealed beneath the Forbidden City’s relatively consistent architectural appearance. In October 2013, the Palace Museum established an archaeological research institute within its broader research institute. Archaeologist Li Ji described its work as extending the study of the palace beyond standing buildings to buried foundations, successive paved surfaces, and altered drainage systems. Early projects examined the eastern enclosure wall, the Southern Warehouses, and the Garden of Compassion and Tranquility, or Cining Garden. At the garden, excavators recorded drainage channels, paving, foundations of earlier large buildings, and rammed-earth and stone substructures. Recording the relationships between these remains, and sampling their construction materials, provides evidence for distinguishing building phases that cannot be identified from the present elevations alone. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Excavated objects also connect architectural history with material culture. Deposits at the Southern Warehouses yielded imperial porcelain, jade and crystal objects, bone and shell artifacts, and fragments of kapala ritual bowls associated with Tibetan Buddhism. Their recorded archaeological contexts provide evidence for court consumption, craft production, and religious practice rather than simply adding isolated objects to the museum’s collections. Excavation methods themselves became a subject of international collaboration: during a 2017 exchange, archaeologists from Durham University spent two weeks working with Palace Museum colleagues at Cining Garden, comparing excavation techniques, recording systems, and post-excavation procedures. The museum dates that garden project’s commencement to 2015. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

Architectural research combines this subsurface evidence with measured surveys, construction drawings, models, archives, and historical photographs. These sources document different kinds of information: drawings and models preserve design decisions, while photographs record visible conditions at particular dates. The Palace Museum’s 2020 exhibition, Everlasting Splendor: Six Centuries at the Forbidden City, organized its account around three themes and eighteen historical focal points, using old photographs, archival documents, and objects to explain architectural change and museum work, including surveys of the central-axis buildings. The Gallery of Historic Architecture likewise presents architectural components, design drawings, and models made by the Lei family of Qing imperial architects. Such displays allow designs to be compared with the surviving structures rather than treating either as a complete record in isolation. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

The palace’s significance for the history of architecture rests partly on the relationship between built form and state institutions. UNESCO identifies its hierarchy of buildings, construction techniques, and architectural arts as an exemplar that influenced official construction throughout approximately three centuries of Qing rule. Its axial organization and differentiated ceremonial and residential spaces provide evidence for studying court ritual alongside administrative and household life. Furnishings, collected objects, engineering records, drawings, and models connect this spatial evidence with documented practices. The Buddhist chambers are particularly important for examining exchanges among Han, Manchu, Mongolian, and Tibetan cultural traditions within the court, rather than interpreting the entire complex as the expression of a single, unchanging tradition. (whc.unesco.org)

Digital interpretation adds another means of examining the site. The museum’s online “Panoramic Palace Museum” accompanies architectural descriptions and explanations of construction crafts, while its architectural galleries use multimedia presentations, structural models, and drawings to make otherwise difficult-to-see features intelligible. These media represent distinct kinds of evidence: a photographic panorama records the visible condition of a space when photographed; an architectural model explains selected structural relationships; and a historical reconstruction proposes an earlier appearance. Research-based interpretation therefore depends on identifying the date and evidential basis of a depiction, especially when presenting interiors or activities no longer preserved in their historical form. An immersive image alone does not establish how a room was furnished or used in a particular reign. (intl.dpm.org.cn)

References

1. 紫禁城现名dpm.org.cn
2. 《明清帝后宝玺(精)/故宫经典》 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
3. About the Palace Museumintl.dpm.org.cn
4. 探索 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
5. 《中轴线·千步廊·朝房》 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
6. 展览列表页ggzl.dpm.org.cn
7. 永乐营北京dpm.org.cn
8. Everlasting Splendor: Six Centuries at the Forbidden Cityintl.dpm.org.cn
9. 永乐朝紫禁城的规划与影响dpm.org.cn
10. 试论明北京城的形成过程及其文化意义img.dpm.org.cn
11. Gallery of Historic Architectureintl.dpm.org.cn
12. 重修三大殿dpm.org.cn
13. 钦安殿奉道dpm.org.cn
14. 改建坤宁宫dpm.org.cn
15. 【图一】坤宁宫正立面图dpm.org.cn
16. 重建太和殿dpm.org.cn
17. 改乾西五所dpm.org.cn
18. 建成宁寿宫dpm.org.cn
19. 探秘灵沼轩dpm.org.cn
20. 遗址类石质文物三维数字化探索——以故宫博物院灵沼轩为例dpm.org.cn
21. 乾清门dpm.org.cn
22. 太和殿dpm.org.cn
23. 太和门dpm.org.cn
24. 翊坤宫dpm.org.cn
25. 长春宫dpm.org.cn
26. 角楼 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
27. 午门 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
28. 神武门 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
29. 东华门 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
30. 西华门 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
31. 阅读链接：清代擅入禁城情况简表dpm.org.cn
32. 紫禁城匾联箴铭展dpm.org.cn
33. 故宫学刊·2011dpm.org.cn
34. 辛酉政变 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
35. 中和殿s.visitbeijing.com.cn
36. 故宫建筑研究资料dpm.org.cn
37. Hall of Preserving Harmony (Baohe dian)intl.dpm.org.cn
38. 保和殿 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
39. 建筑dpm.org.cn
40. 乾清宫dpm.org.cn
41. 交泰殿dpm.org.cn
42. 坤宁宫zh.wikipedia.org
43. 延禧宫dpm.org.cn
44. 丽景轩dpm.org.cn
45. 入主养心殿dpm.org.cn
46. 养心殿dpm.org.cn
47. 养心殿dpm.org.cn
48. 宫女制度dpm.org.cn
49. 清代宫廷饮食dpm.org.cn
50. The Furniture Galleryintl.dpm.org.cn
51. 生活器具dpm.org.cn
52. 奉先殿 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
53. 钦安殿研究文章 - 故宫博物院img.dpm.org.cn
54. 《钦安殿档案》（乾隆二十一年之二） - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
55. 钦安殿 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
56. 雨花阁 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
57. 宫廷宗教 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
58. 梵华楼铜镀金般若品佛像 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
59. 梵华楼 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
60. 坤宁宫 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
61. 坤宁宫 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
62. 御花园 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
63. 故宫学刊·2017：乾隆太上皇宫研究dpm.org.cn
64. 宁寿宫花园（乾隆花园） - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
65. Artistry and Ingenuity: The History and Conservation of the Qianlong Gardenintl.dpm.org.cn
66. 禊赏亭 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
67. Chinese traditional architectural craftsmanship for timber-framed structuresich.unesco.org
68. 《故宫古建大木构件典型残损问题分析——巩固擎天—柱的残损与加固》dpm.org.cn
69. 体仁阁dpm.org.cn
70. 斗栱dpm.org.cn
71. 太和殿dpm.org.cn
72. 《八大作》第一集：土作——厚而载物dpm.org.cn
73. 《八大作》第二集：石作——稳而持重dpm.org.cn
74. 中国传统木结构建筑影响深远ihchina.cn
75. 《八大作》第六集：油作——厚薄有度dpm.org.cn
76. 《八大作》第八集：裱糊作——柔外韧内dpm.org.cn
77. 《八大作》第三集：搭材作——相辅相成dpm.org.cn
78. 紫禁城排水与北京城沟渠述略dpm.org.cn
79. The Palace Museum and Archaeologyintl.dpm.org.cn
80. 太和殿行什相关问题讨论dpm.org.cn
81. 康熙《皇城宫殿衙署图》解读（中）jgcm.ac.cn
82. 熏缸化冰dpm.org.cn
83. 世界文化遗产·全国重点文物保护单位dpm.org.cn
84. 故宫博物院年鉴 2014dpm.org.cn
85. 和玺彩画 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
86. Hall of Supreme Harmony photograph - The Palace Museumintl.dpm.org.cn
87. 《太和殿》 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
88. 太和殿正吻安装完毕 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
89. 文渊阁 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
90. 古代建筑琉璃构件价值揭示与科技保护研究 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
91. Palace Museum digital exhibition: Qianlong’s account of the Hall of Three Raritiesdpm.org.cn
92. 王献之行草书中秋帖卷 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
93. 《书苑闻名的三希堂》 - 故宫博物院dpm.org.cn
94. Joyful Leisure: Calligraphy and Paintings by the Qianlong Emperor and Court Officialsintl.dpm.org.cn
95. 以诗设教：学诗堂的贮藏与《石渠宝笈》的编纂dpm.org.cn
96. 古物陈列所dpm.org.cn
97. 专馆dpm.org.cn
98. 家具馆gugongzhanlan.dpm.org.cn
99. 故宫博物院院刊dpm.org.cn
100. 故宮博物院院刊mct.gov.cn
101. 文物南迁dpm.org.cn
102. 文物西迁dpm.org.cn
103. 文物西迁dpm.org.cn
104. 马衡dpm.org.cn
105. 故宫文物南迁史料馆dpm.org.cn
106. 南迁文物回归故宫dpm.org.cn
107. About the Palace Museumintl.dpm.org.cn
108. Restoration and Reopening of Qianlong Gardenwmf.org
109. 不懈探索分流限流 锲而不舍确保平安——故宫博物院千方百计多管齐下应对观众流量难题dpm.org.cn
110. 为了走上丝绸之路：故宫——杜伦大学的考古学交流dpm.org.cn
111. Exploreintl.dpm.org.cn