Wed, August 06, 2008
The Summer Palace (Yiheyuan), a world-renowned imperial garden located in Northwestern Beijing, is a masterpiece of Chinese landscaping that harmoniously incorporates the works of man and nature. The Palace, which served four generations of the imperial family, is now a popular resort for people from all walks of life.
Covering 293 hectares, the palace mainly consists of Longevity Hill and Kunming Lake, and boasts more than 3,000 various buildings. About three quarters of the garden is covered by a lake.
The Summer Palace has a history of over 800 years. Early in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234), an imperial palace named Golden Hill Palace was built on the present site of the Summer Palace. In 1750, with 4.48 million taels of silver, Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) built the Garden of Clear Ripples, renaming it Longevity Hill to celebrate his mother's birthday.
In 1860 the site was burned down by invading allied forces from Great Britain and France. In 1888, Empress Dowager Cixi, with a fund of 30 million taels of silver embezzled from the Imperial Navy, restored the grand garden. The construction lasted 10 years. After its completion, Cixi renamed it Yiheyuan, the Garden of Peace and Harmony. In 1900, the Allied Eight Powers again attacked the site, this time destroying all of big temples and halls at the back of the Longevity Hill, with only one remaining. When Cixi returned to Beijing in 1903, the full-scale restoration again took place. The site was rebuilt in time for the empress to enjoy a few more summers and was finally opened to the public in 1923.
In the past, to avoid the intense heat of Beijing summers, the Qing imperial family left the Forbidden City to stay at the Summer Palace. Three-fourths of the palace is covered by Kunming Lake, whose shape and size have been altered many times by successive landscape architects. The lake is central to the overall design of the park.
The Summer Palace is an outstanding example of imperial, as well as private gardens, with features of both northern and southern China. It is the best-preserved and largest of all Chinese imperial gardens. The palace integrates the natural landscape of hills and open water with man-made features, such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges, into a harmonious and aesthetically exceptional whole.
