Summer Imperial Palace (Iheyuan)

Summer Imperial Palace is a palace and park ensemble, the residence of the Qing Dynasty emperors in Beijing, it is also called the “Garden of Caring for Old Age Rest.”

The Summer Imperial Palace is quite different from the “winter palace” in the city: it is neither a fortress nor a cage for concubines, but a green, spacious, multifaceted, sometimes even revelatory park. It was conceived not as a villa of the emperor, but as a residence of the empress dowager. Today, this palace 16 km northwest of the center of Beijing is primarily a masterpiece of landscape architecture. Two distinctive features prevail here: Kunming Lake, which together with the adjacent water bodies occupies three quarters of the garden, and the 60-meter high “Longevity Mountain” on the northern shore of the lake. Opening hours: Apr.-Oct. daily. 7.30-17.00, some buildings only 9.00-16.00; Nov.-March daily. 8.00-17.00. Bus 332 from the bus station “Zoo” to the final stop.

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History and layout of the complex

The Summer Imperial Palace was built around 1750 and almost completely destroyed in 1860 by French and British troops. In 1888, Empress Dowager Cixi ordered the complex rebuilt for herself. Here she spent the summer and fall months, since 1898 – always with the emperor, whom she had deprived of power. The theme of longevity and immortality is constantly varied here: in the names of halls and locations (Longevity Hill, Hall of Joy and Longevity, etc.), as well as in the symbolism of vegetation, ornaments and decorative objects, such as pine trees, cranes, peaches, mushrooms, bottle gourds. The religious symbolism of the summer palace should also be considered, for example in the most famous structure of the complex, the “incense pavilion for Buddha”. In addition, the garden had to give an idea of the scale of the Manchurian Empire, hence the South Chinese “garden of literate people” with a lotus pond and the Tibetan temple on the northern slope of the hill. In general, however, the Summer Imperial Palace serves mainly for entertainment: two theaters, a shopping alley, a long covered gallery and, of course, water provide ample opportunity for this.

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The main (east) gate of Zhenshoumen Gate

Two bronze lions flank the main entrance. By its very orientation to the east, rather than south, it makes it clear that it is not as strict as the imperial palace. The next Gate of Longevity Due to Good Works overlooks the main courtyard with an audience hall lined with tall pine trees. The 3-meter-high garden stone on the main axis just outside the gate looks like an abstract sculpture – like the garden stones throughout the palace, it is simply the most magnificent specimen. Behind the stone squats a bronze qilin, a hoofed animal with a dragon’s head and scaly body. It proclaims an era of bliss. Bronze dragons and phoenixes served as vessels for incense.

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Zhenshoudian Audience Hall

The Audience Hall (“Hall of Longevity due to the goodness done”) is an emphatically unpretentious summer palace structure with a simple gray roof; it inspires modesty. The interior decoration has been preserved almost in the original. Placed in the center of the throne is surrounded by cranes and vessels with incense. A dragon-adorned screen behind it displays the hieroglyph “show” for “longevity” two hundred and twenty-six times. A transverse plaque above the throne proclaims: “Old age and goodness accompany each other” – hence the hall’s name, which refers to Confucius’ “Conversations.”

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Garden of Virtue and Harmony

The Garden of Virtue and Harmony (Deheyuan) is the lying north of the Audience Hall, the larger of the two palace theaters. The stage, 21 meters high and 17 meters wide, equipped with three tiers, hinged hatches, and hoisting machines, allowed for astonishing effects. In the side buildings, from where the Empress Dowager and her entourage watched the performances, there is now an exhibition of the Empress’s personal belongings and gifts received by her, including an 1898 Benz.

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Yuilantan Pavilion

To the southwest of the theater complex on the shore is the Jade Wave Hall residential courtyard. Here, Empress Dowager Cixi kept her nephew, Emperor Guangxu, under house arrest from 1898 until the death of them both while she herself was in the summer palace.

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Lashoutang Pavilion

Cixi herself lived in an adjoining complex to the northwest, the “Pavilion of Joy and Longevity”. Appropriate symbols reign everywhere, such as the bronze decoration in front of the main hall: one pair each of deer, cranes, and vases with a relief pattern depicting cranes perched on pine trees. The fact that there are only six objects reflects the Chinese saying, “Six joined is peace on earth.” The monumental garden stone looks like a lingzhi mushroom, which, according to Chinese belief, gives immortality. Cixi’s throne and dining table are on display in the interior. Embroidery depicts a peacock spinning a wheel, as well as “a hundred birds in audience with the Phoenix,” an allegory of Cixi comparing herself to the Phoenix before whom all others bow. The pavilion has its own boat dock. A paper lantern once hung from a 20-meter-long gate-like framework, serving as a beacon for night boat rides.

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Long covered gallery

Adjoining the Lashawtan Pavilion is perhaps the most famous structure of the summer imperial palace, the covered gallery. The 728 meters of roof and views of the lake and mountain form only part of its appeal. Equally interesting are the paintings adorning the beams; it is the longest painted covered gallery in the world. There are over 8,000 scenes here – they are illustrations of popular novels and the beauties of nature (landscapes, birds, flowers).

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Paiyukdian Palace

The middle of the covered gallery provides access to the architectural culmination of the palace complex. The impression it gives is enhanced by roofs covered with glazed bricks in imperial yellow and partially framed in blue. The part of the summer palace that faces the lake is called the Paiyun Dian Hall. This name alludes to a poem of the 4th century, where clouds passing through the sky are mentioned as companions of immortals, on which immortals as free spirits travel through space and time. In the names of the halls, the garden thus translates the already repeatedly revealed theme of longevity into a poetic-legendary dimension. A succession of courtyards, halls and staircases ascending to the sky begins at the lake, where an ornamental gate stands. The twelve garden stones in the forecourt of the palace represent the animals of the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese calendar. On the other side of the entrance gate, a white marble bridge spans the pond. Beyond the next gate is the gable-roofed throne room. Here the empress dowager received honors from the court on the day of her birth. The rich decoration has been preserved: most of the exhibits are gifts from Cixi for her seventieth birthday.

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Incense Pavilion for Buddha (Fosiange)

Covered staircases lead up to a yellow-roofed hall. From there, open staircases lead up to the building domesticated above the entire palace – the Ladan Pavilion for Buddha, an octagonal three-tiered structure that is optically raised to the level of the top by a 20-meter-high square stone terrace. To choose a Buddhist building as the dominant showpiece of the palace was previously unthinkable for a ruler of Confucian China. However, the Manchus were close to Buddhism. Inside the building is a thousand-armed Guanyin. The terrace offers a magnificent panorama of the lake.

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Bronze Pavilion

To the west on the slope stands a small hall made entirely of bronze, the “Cloud Treasure Pavilion” built in 1752. This 7.5-meter-high architectural masterpiece stands on a white terrace between other buildings in the middle of a small courtyard. Formally, it imitates a wooden, brick-roofed hall building.

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Tingliguan Restaurant and Theater

Back to the covered gallery: the last large ensemble of buildings that this gallery leads to is called the House of the Call of the Oriole, with a palace restaurant and the smaller of the two palace theaters. The name “Tingliguan” is a sound imitation of the tune of the Chinese black-headed oriole, a hint of the music played here.

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Marble Rook

A pavilion standing on a stone plinth in the shape of a rook is a curio of dubious taste, especially since the rook, built in 1755, was fitted with imaginary paddle wheels under Empress Cixi. The then-fashionable European-style superstructures are also confusing: they are made of wood painted to resemble marble. This unsinkable structure is considered to be a literary reminiscence of Emperor Taizong’s advice from the Tang Dynasty (7th century): “The water that carries a ship can overturn it. By “ship” the emperor meant the state.

Sequyuan Garden

If one walks north from the great palace theater (Deheyuan) and then turns east, one comes to the idyllic Garden of inner consonance and outer goodness. It was designed as an enlarged copy of the Middle Chinese “garden of literati”. With its lotus pond fringed with weeping willows and pines, pavilions, halls and covered galleries, changing each other in a cheerful rhythm, it was conceived primarily as a summer garden. A bypass, here and there leading over small bridges, connects the buildings. One of the pavilions on the south bank has a tea room.

Suzhou Street

In 1987, two nineteenth-century rows of stores that had been destroyed were reconstructed and stretched along both sides of the canal at the northern foot of the hill, modeled after the Central Chinese city of Suzhou. The emperor, empress and concubines could play “common people” here (hello Marie Antoinette!) In sixty shops eunuchs and maids sold them snacks, toys and arts and crafts or invited them to relax with a cup of tea. Today’s vendors are dressed in national costumes, at the entrance to the shops hang ancient shop badges. It’s very pleasant to walk around here.

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Tibetan Temple

On the northern slope of Longevity Hill (Wanshoushan) stands a group of nineteen Tibetan-style buildings. They form a mandala consisting of the “four continents” of the Buddhist world picture, each with two subcontinents. The upper eleven floors rise on a red terrace with false windows, reminiscent of the Red Palace in Tibet’s Potala complex.

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Kunming Lake

With dams dividing it on its western side and with bridges spanning over the narrows, this oldest of all imperial garden lakes has been designed as a replica of the famous Xihu Lake in Hangzhou. Boats can dock at various places on the north shore, near the east gate, and at the South Island. Boat rentals are located near the Marble Boat and at the eastern edge of the Seventeen-Arched Bridge.

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Seventeen Arch Bridge

The elegant bridge, 150 meters long and 8 meters wide, erected in 1750 from white natural stone, is among the most famous ancient bridges in China. Stone lions guard it on both banks, with small stone lions crowning the supports for the railings. The bridge leads to the largest of the islands on the lake, interesting especially because of the view of Wanshoushan Hill and the palace buildings on the north shore. The ancient Dragon King Temple on the island honors the blessing-bearing Lord of the Waters.

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