Chinese Ming and Qing palace architecture. The Beijing palace museum as example

In the five thousand years of development of Chinese civilization, architecture has become an indispensable tool for living. In my opinion, architecture is used as a tool, but with the development of time, Chinese architecture has formed its own unique style and nature of using, each dynasty has different characteristics, and the Ming and Qing Dynasties is the peak of Chinese traditional architecture. Gardens, palaces, houses, mausoleum and other different forms of building appeared, and in this article I want to tell is the Palace Museum.

Ancient emperors in order to consolidate their rule, to highlight the majesty of the imperial power, to meet the spiritual life and enjoy the material life and the construction of large-scale, imposing buildings, used to manage the affairs of government and residence. The first is front office and behind living .The second is three main palaces and five doors .The third is the ancestral temple on the left and the gods on the right. The fourth is axis symmetry. Before the former after the bed for the political affairs, after the Queen's concubines as a living room. The second is a palace layout, can show the royal dignity spectacular, is the ancient Chinese patriarchal social hierarchy and order of spirit. Axis symmetry reflects the supremacy of the ancient feudal society imperial power. The remaining representative of the Ming and Qing palace is the Forbidden City in Nanjing, the Palace Museum in Beijing, Shenyang Imperial Palace, Lama Temple [4].

Nanjing Imperial Palace is the beginning of the palace, now the blueprint for the Beijing Palace Museum. Ming Palace is located in the east of Nanjing, covers an area of more than 1 million square meters. Is the world's largest medieval palace, known as the "world's first palace." But repeated destruction, is the only remaining part of the ground construction and underground pillar and other remains, is regrettable.

Shenyang Imperial Palace was built in 1625, is the palace of the early Qing Dynasty, Shenyang Imperial Palace covers an area of more than 60,000 square meters, well- preserved intramural buildings. Although its size than the area of 720,000 square meters of the Forbidden City in Beijing is much smaller, but the architectural style is unique.

Lama Temple is a palace-like temple. Lama Temple preserved thousands of Buddha statues and a wealth of Buddhist classic artifacts. [3]

Introduction of the Beijing Palace Museum

In this article we will focus on the Beijing Palace Museum, also called the Forbidden City, is the representative of the Ming and Qing palace architecture, located in the center of Beijing axis, is the essence of ancient Chinese palace architecture. Beijing Forbidden City to the three main hall as the center, an area of 720,000 square meters, construction area of about 150,000 square meters, housing more than 9,000. It is the world's largest existing and most complete preservation of the wooden structure of the ancient buildings and is one of the world's five largest palace, has been listed as a world cultural heritage, the national key cultural relics protection units, the national 5A-class tourist attractions, and the number of eight million people [1].

The construction of the Beijing Palace Museum. Emperor Zhu Di decided to move the capital from Nanjing to Beijing, so they must prepare to build the Palace Museum in Beijing, the construction of the Palace Museum took only three years, but the preparation to use for 11 years, because the royal to choose the best wood and stone. The precious Nanmu more growth in the mountains, and the people adventured into the mountain finding wood, and a lot of people lost their lives. Later left a "into the mountains one thousand, five hundred go out of mountains" to describe the cost of wood to pay the life. Mining the construction of the palace of stone, the same is very difficult. Now, after Baohe Temple has the largest Dan Pi stone, mining in the southwest of Beijing Fang mountain. History records the scene when it was delivered: tens of thousands of workers dig a well on every side of the road, and when the temperature is low enough in the winter, the water is poured from the well into the icy road. It took 28 days to send to the palace [6].

The burial and reconstruction of the Beijing Palace Museum. Because of the flammable nature of wooden buildings and the absence of lightning rods in ancient China, the main buildings in the Palace Museum have been destroyed by fire several times, but after several years they have been rebuilt to see that we can now see the complete Palace Museum.

The palace of ancient Chinese architecture embodied in the Beijing Palace Museum

3.1 Building layout. The Beijing Palace Museum is 961m long from north to south, 753m wide from east to west, surrounded by a 10m high wall, 52m wide moat outside the city [fig. 1]. The Beijing Palace Museum has four gates, south of the Wu Gate, north of the Shenwu Gate, east to Donghua Gate, west to Xihua Gate. The walls of the four corners, each with a graceful turret, there Eire nine beams and eighteen pillars of the public, said its complex structure. The Beijing Palace Museum within the building is divided into two parts to the outer court Emd the inner court. Outside towards the center of the Taihe Palace. The Taihe Palace is located in the center of the Forbidden City diagonal, four comers of the ten auspicious animals. The designers of the Forbidden City think that this shows the emperor's majesty, and deter the world. The Taihe Palace, Zhonghe Palace, and Baohe Ргііасе collectively referred to as the three palaces.They are places to hold national ceremonies. Three main palaces around the wings supplemented by Wenhua Temple, Wu Ying Temple. The inner court is the center of the palaces of Qianqing, Jiaotai and Kun- ning, collectively referred to as the emperor and the empress live palaces. Followed by Imperial Garden. After the three houses arranged on both sides of the East and West Palaces, the concubines are living and resting place. East Palace is such as the Buddhism Palace building, west Palace is the main hall and other buildings. Outside the East there are the East Road, West Road, two parts of the building. Outside the East Road is the prince living in the southern part of the palace, commonly known as the South House, the north is the Emperor Qianlong built the palace too - Ningshou Palace. South West is the Empress Dowager Cining Palace and Shoukang Palace. In addition to the North the Empress Dowager live in Shouan Palace, there are other Chinese temple

Fig. 1 The Palace Museum plan Fig. 2 Aerial view of the Palace Museum