Architecture of the Forbidden City in Beijing

Beijing, once called Peking in the West, served as the capital of China for six dynasties over six centuries, and the capital has been modified and maintained continuously over that time. The city is made up of the northern Inner City and the southern Outer City, and the city as a whole is made up of numerous smaller walled-in courtyards. Against this background a core of structures stands out more meaningfully in the orderly design, and these make up the Forbidden City and its long avenue of approach from the south with all the gates and yards enhancing each significant stage of procession. A temple is the house of God and can only be read by man from the outside in, but the city of man, as Beijing is and as the Forbidden City is, can be read both from within and from without. In this case, the resident begins from the center, and the stranger begins from outside the gate. The central group of buildings is vital to understanding the whole composition. In the center are the San-tien, or the three halls of T'ai-ho, Chung-ho, and Pao-ho. They occupy an I-shaped platform of three t

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s. The Inner City encloses a nest of walled areas, and the largest of these is the Huang Ch'eng, or the Imperial City, which occupies a central position. It is a rectangle measuring one and three-quarter miles from south to north and one and one-half from east to west. The Imperial City today contains many public buildings, former government offices, the Pei Ta University, the National Library, and the former imperial (now public) pleasure parks with their beautiful ornamental lakes. At the heart of this lies the Tzu Chin Ch'eng, or the Forbidden City, or Palace Quarter, another rectangle only slightly less than a mile long from south to north and more than half a mile wide from east to west. The English name for the city carries an undertone of menace, and it is likely that trespass in the imperial precinct would have been severely punished. The area was closely guarded to prevent precisely that sort of intrusion. The Chinese title suggests supreme power and authority and the privacy that is appropriate to these characteristics. The emperor ruled by the mandate of heaven. The word Tzu means "the Pole" around which all terrestrial affairs were believed to revolve in the manner of the heavenly bodies circling the Pole St
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1716
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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