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September 15, 2013

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Home » Sunday » Now and Then

Daming Palace once world’s largest

By Zhang Ciyun | September 15, 2013, Sunday | Print Edition

Daming Palace 大明宫

Location: Xi’an

Space: 350 hectares, 4.5 times the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing

First built in: AD 635 in Tang Dynasty

Destroyed in: AD 896 in Tang Dynasty

Today: Daming Palace Heritage Park has been built on the site

The Daming Palace, built nearly 1,400 years ago, was once the largest and most grandiose imperial palace complex in the world. Covering a total area of 350 hectares, it was 4.5 times the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing and eight times that of the Louvre in Paris.

The palace was located at Longshou Plateau to the northeast of today’s Xi’an in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, and for more than 220 years, it served as the residence and government center for 16 emperors and one empress of the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), a golden age in China’s feudalistic history.

Construction of the palace started in AD 635. It was first called Yong’an Palace, originally designed by Emperor Taizong (AD 599-649) as a residence for his father, the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty. However, before the construction was completed, both Emperor Taizong and his father had passed away.

It was not until AD 662 — 27 years later — that the construction and renovation of the palace were resumed under the rule of Emperor Gaozong (AD 628-683). The emperor moved into the palace the next year.

With a perimeter of 7.6 kilometers, the palace spanned 1,500 meters east to west and 2,500 meters south to north. It featured 11 large gates and in front of its main gate, namely, the Danfeng Gate, there was a thoroughfare 176 meters wide. If it still existed, it would be the widest street in the world today.

Most parts of the complex were wooden structures. At that time, the Chinese architectural techniques for wooden buildings already were quite sophisticated. For instance, the builders employed large dougong, interlocking wooden brackets, to support the extension of roofs and overhanging eaves, thus covering a bigger area.

In addition, the builders of the palace introduced a special system of column arrangements to increase the floor space of the monumental architecture.

Thanks to those techniques, advanced at that time, the main hall in the palace, called the Hanyuan Hall, covered a total floor space of 2,470 square meters, bigger than Taihe Hall or the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the largest structure in Beijing’s Forbidden City, which was built nearly 780 years later.

The Daming Palace’s fame was also linked to Wu Zetian, the only woman to rule China by her own right. It was where she ascended to the throne and exercised her iron-fisted rule.

Wu was first summoned to the imperial court by Emperor Taizong when she was only 12 years old. And because of her peerless beauty, the emperor named her one of his concubines the next year.

Not long after Emperor Taizong died in AD 649, Wu became the empress of his son, the new Emperor Gaozong.

After Emperor Gaozong died, Wu became the Empress Dowager and she first deposed the next new emperor and then installed her youngest son as a puppet emperor. Wu herself became the de facto ruler.

According to the traditional Chinese order of succession, a woman could never ascend to the throne. In order to achieve her ambition of becoming the first empress regent of the country, Wu founded her own dynasty in AD 690. Wu’s dynasty, called Zhou, lasted for 15 years until AD 705, the year Wu fell sick and died.

During her rule of the country, Wu once renamed the palace as Penglai Palace, but four years before she died, the name of the complex became Daming Palace again.

Unfortunately, during the widespread wars in the late years of the Tang Dynasty, the once matchless, grandiose palace complex was burned to the ground. In recent years, a national heritage park has been built on the site. It opened in October 2010.

•斗拱 (dǒu gǒng) bracket set

Dougong, or bracket set, is not only a unique structural element, but also one of the most important members in traditional Chinese architecture.

Thanks to the interlocking wooden bracket, the eaves of some buildings could project out as far as more than 4 meters, thus providing vital protection for the wooden structure and mud walls from weather damage.

The bracket sets also provide a vertical support for the uplifted roof edges, or the so-called flying eaves, designed to let light penetrate into the interior of a building.

Most monumental buildings in the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) employed a big number of large dougong to support projecting and flying eaves.

Apart from its practical function, dougong had also been used in ancient Chinese architecture for its ornamental appeal. Usually, the more important the building was, the more complex the dougong would be.

SundayNow and Then


 

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