Interior of the Heart Nourishing Hall

Fuwang Pavilion

Weariness and diligence

On October 10, 1925, a plaque with five characters "The Palace Museum" was hung on the gate of the Forbidden City. Since the 18th year of Yongle's reign in the Ming Dynasty (1420), the thick red gate of this former royal palace was opened to the people for the first time, and the mysterious veil was lifted. On that day, Beijing was crowded with people to see its true face.

This palace city, which is located on the central axis of Beijing, covers an area of 720000 square meters and has 230000 square meters of ancient buildings. From planning to architectural layout, the concept of the Five Elements Theory is applied, reflecting an ancient Chinese world view and cosmology. A total of 24 emperors lived here in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and their decrees reached four levels.

The Palace Museum, which has changed from a "palace" to a "courtyard" and approached the world, has won a series of honors: in 1961, it was listed as the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units; in 1987, it became the first batch of world cultural heritage listed in the World Heritage List in China; it is the largest palace building complex in the world, and also the most complete existing ancient wooden structure building complex in the world, It is known as the first of the five palaces in the world.

The Forbidden City has been striving to develop into a world-class museum. Especially in recent years, the Forbidden City has almost changed with each passing day. From 30% before 2002, to 65% in 2015, and then to 76% in 2016, the scope of the Palace Museum's opening to the public continues to expand. It is estimated that by 2020, when the Forbidden City celebrates its 600th birthday, the scope of opening to the public will account for 80% of the total area. In 2025, when the Palace Museum celebrates its centennial, the open space is expected to reach 85%, and the audience will be able to have a more comprehensive understanding of the royal culture of the Ming and Qing dynasties.

Nowadays, the Forbidden City is no longer just the first popular tourist attraction in China. Its public museum attribute is becoming more and more distinct. The rich exhibitions have become the most direct way for people to get close contact with the Forbidden City; The number of people who visit the Forbidden City every year is up to 15 million. They gradually change from "tourists" to "audience", where they can experience culture, appreciate traditions and enjoy cultural feast. More than 10000 cultural and creative products have been launched in succession, which makes people's impression of the Forbidden City from "sitting upright" to "cute", and the Forbidden City has become more and more popular.

In the cultural system of the whole country, the Forbidden City has a unique landmark meaning and cultural symbol. "Running in the Forbidden City", "Spirit of the Forbidden City", "Manufacturing in the Forbidden City", "Overhaul of the Forbidden City", etc. can all become hot spots and focuses in the cultural field for a period of time. Many foreign dignitaries and international friends who entered the Forbidden City, as well as international forums and exhibitions held here, have made the Forbidden City a universally recognized "Chinese symbol".

The value of the Forbidden City is no longer limited to the palaces and pavilions inside the red walls. The tangible Forbidden City has become a place and witness for the inheritance of Chinese traditional culture and cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries; The invisible Forbidden City continues the Chinese historical context, carries the national memory, and demonstrates the strength of Chinese culture.

Guarding the Cultural Relics and Treasures of the Forbidden City

Retain the cultural memory of the country

The Palace Museum is one of the few museums in the world with the characteristics of art museum, architecture museum, history museum, palace culture museum, etc. It is an important carrier of the cultural heritage of the Chinese nation. In the past 600 years, the ancient buildings in the Forbidden City have been rebuilt and expanded many times in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the official style ancient building construction skills formed by the reconstruction and expansion were included in the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008.

In 2002, the 18 year overall maintenance and protection project of the ancient buildings in the Forbidden City was launched. The "Century Overhaul" attracted worldwide attention, and the people in the Forbidden City were cautious. "In a sense, the current problems encountered in the protection and inheritance of the ancient buildings in the Forbidden City are not only the process and technology, but also the problem of understanding and attitude, that is, what kind of concept should be used to treat the traditional Chinese culture and human cultural heritage," said Shan Jixiang, president of the Palace Museum.

In 2015, on the basis of summing up the experience of repairing ancient buildings in the past, the Palace Museum selected four ancient buildings to be repaired urgently, namely, the Heart Nourishing Hall, the Qianlong Garden, the Dagao Xuandian Hall, and the Forbidden City wall, as the pilot of the "research protection project", to explore new implementation mechanisms and inheritance methods for the repair of ancient buildings.

On September 3, 2018, the research protection project of Yangxin Hall officially started, two years and eight months after the launch ceremony. The research protection project of the Heart Nourishing Hall is the first comprehensive research restoration project of movable and immovable cultural relics in China. The Palace Museum has done a lot of preliminary work for this, including preparing the Overall Plan of the Research Protection Project of the Heart Nourishing Hall, organizing the research team to study the historical documents of the original display, ancient buildings, indoor cultural relics and their preservation environment We can see the degree of importance attached to the protection and management evolution through systematic excavation and in-depth research, and the establishment of 33 special research topics.

In the 1920s, the opening of the Palace Museum became its historical watershed. Outside the red wall, the wind and clouds are stirring. The changes of the Palace Museum cannot be separated from the grand background of China's hundred year history, and its ups and downs have always been closely linked with the fate of the country.

After the fall of Shanhaiguan on January 31, 1933, the Council of the Palace Museum decided to ship some of the cultural relics of the Palace Museum to Shanghai in batches to avoid Japanese aggression. After arriving in Shanghai, the cultural relics were stored in the Shanghai office of the Palace Museum at Ya'erpei Road (now South Shaanxi Road) in the French Concession of Shanghai, and the cultural relics warehouse was built in Chaotian Palace in Nanjing. In 1936, the cultural relics stored in Shanghai were moved to the new warehouse in Nanjing in five batches; After the July 7th Incident in 1937, the cultural relics from the south of the Forbidden City, together with the cultural relics from the Preparatory Office of the National Central Museum (now Nanjing Museum) and other units, were urgently moved westward in three routes, transported to Sichuan, and stored in Ba County, Emei County, and Leshan County. In 1946, the three cultural relics were first concentrated in Chongqing, and were transported back to Nanjing in 1947. 2972 cases of the cultural relics transported south from the end of 1948 to the beginning of 1949 were transported to Taiwan and preserved in the Palace Museum in Taipei. In January 1949, after the stability of Peiping (that is, Beijing), the Palace Museum was reopened; More than 10000 boxes of cultural relics left in Nanjing after 1951 were successively transported back to the Palace Museum, and the remaining 2221 boxes were left in the Nanjing warehouse, which was owned by the Nanjing Museum.

The total journey of the cultural relics of the Forbidden City to the south is tens of thousands of miles, crossing most of China, and none of the millions of cultural relics has been lost or destroyed, which can be called a miracle in the world cultural history. As the book "Spirit of the Forbidden City and People in the Forbidden City" wrote, "Especially during the Anti Japanese War, a large number of cultural relics in the Forbidden City Museum moved southward to avoid invaders, which is closely linked to the fate of the Chinese nation, giving the cultural relics in the Forbidden City extraordinary significance."

Since 2004, the Palace Museum has started the large-scale cultural relics collection cleaning for seven consecutive years, with 1807558 pieces (sets) of cultural relics collected after discharge. Later, according to the unified requirements of the state, the Forbidden City has cleaned up the movable cultural relics for another three years, and finally announced that there are 1862690 pieces of cultural relics in the museum, 93.19% of which are precious cultural relics, each of which is a top-level collection, full of life meaning, becoming the "password of the Forbidden City" to interpret the traditional Chinese culture, and preserving the cultural memory on it has become an important asset of the whole country.

The history of the Palace Museum mirrors the history of changes from modern China to modern China, and is also the best footnote for people in the Palace Museum to protect cultural relics and continue the Chinese culture. What happens in the Palace Museum every day will eventually become the history of making history.

Show more authentic Forbidden City

Retrieve lost traditional cultural skills

In the fifth year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty (1407), Zhu Di, the Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty, ordered the construction of a palace city, and a huge project was started. Lou Qingxi wrote in "Twenty Lectures on Chinese Ancient Architecture" that the wood needed to build the palace came from Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan and other places. After being cut down from the mountains, it was first transported to the Yangtze River through the rivers in various regions, then transported along the Yangtze River from west to east to the Grand Canal, and then to Hebei Province. Stone is the most difficult to collect and transport among building materials. "A large number of stones needed for platform foundations, steps and railings are called white marble. This white stone is mainly produced in Quyang, Hebei Province, 400 miles away from Beijing. It was not easy to transport huge and heavy stones over a long distance. The clever craftsman came up with a method of roller skating, that is, digging wells along the road, taking advantage of the cold weather in winter, pouring water from wells into ice, carrying rocks on the roller boat, and dragging people on the ice. " The imperial stone in front of and behind the Three Halls is 16 meters long, 3.17 meters wide, and weighs more than 200 tons. In order to transport this largest boulder, more than 20000 migrant workers were employed, and more than 140 wells were dug along the way... The material preparation work continued for nearly 10 years, and the site construction began on a large scale. It took 13 years to complete the Forbidden City by combining material preparation and on-site construction.

Since then, the Qing government has maintained, repaired and rebuilt the Forbidden City very frequently, which has given birth to a large number of excellent craftsmen and exquisite skills. By the late Qing Dynasty, eight masterpieces had been formed: tile, wood, stone, building materials, soil, paint, color painting and pasting.

In an article, Shan Jixiang described in detail the gold bricks of "The Forbidden City is the most praiseworthy". The important buildings on the central axis of the Forbidden City, such as the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Hall of Central Harmony, and the Hall of Preserving Harmony, are all paved with gold brick floors. This kind of gold brick is specially fired for the imperial palace. It is made in Yuyao Village in the northeast of Suzhou. It is hard and has a metal sound when it is struck. The manufacturing process is complex, "After seven processes of soil selection, digging, transporting, drying, pushing, pounding, grinding, and screening, the mud will be cleared, precipitated, filtered, and dried in a three-stage pool. After being trampled by human feet, it will become mud. Then it will be shaped with pallets, wooden frames, stone wheels, and other tools. Then it will be dried in a shady place. It will be stirred every day for 8 months before getting mud... Its value is as expensive as gold, so it is called 'gold brick' in history." At present, the remaining gold bricks still have the words of "Suzhou Prefecture Governor" and "Suzhou Prefecture Magistrate Name".

The traditional craft of firing bricks and tiles by the villagers of Yuyao Village in Suzhou has been handed down from generation to generation. In 2006, the gold brick skills of Suzhou Lumuyu Kiln Gold Brick Factory were included in the National Intangible Heritage List. The Palace Museum Meridian Gate, Taihe Gate, Shenwu Gate, Shoukang Palace, and Cining Palace are all repaired with gold foil. In 2006, Nanjing gold foil forging technology was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. On February 1, 2018, the Palace Museum set up the first batch of "Palace Museum official style ancient building material bases" in Suzhou Lumuyu Kiln Gold Brick Factory and Nanjing Jinling Gold Foil Group Co., Ltd. As a result, a number of traditional skills have been discovered, reborn and developed.

In March 2003, the Palace Museum signed a formal agreement with the World Heritage Building Foundation of the United States to cooperate in the interior decoration, protection and repair project of the Quilt Room. Located in the northwest corner of the Palace Museum's Ningshou Palace complex, the Kuqin Zhai is not prominent in the entire ancient building complex of the Palace Museum, but its interior decoration is unique in terms of small size, luxury and comfort, and its degree of refinement is unparalleled. Qiqin Zhai was designed by Emperor Qianlong himself, and bamboo products were widely used for interior decoration. Among them, the sill walls above and below the east five immortal buildings are all carved with bamboo yellow, and this is the only place where bamboo yellow is used in the decoration of the palace buildings, which is extremely valuable.

Shan Jixiang mentioned such a detail. In the restoration project of Kuqin Zhai, He Fuli, a master of Chinese bamboo craftsmanship, devoted himself to studying this lost craft. "Bamboo yellow should be softened to be as thin as paper, and can be inlaid on uneven wood carving patterns like cloth. Bamboo is too old or too tender. In addition, the more softened the bamboo is, the less fiber it has, but not too brittle... I finally know how excellent the craftsmanship of the old ancestors is." The restoration of the Kuqin Zhai Tongjing painting has promoted the restoration of mulberry paper production skills, It was listed in the national intangible cultural heritage list in 2008.

In the process of repairing Fuwangge in Qianlong Garden (also called Ningshou Palace Garden), there are still many such examples. Zhao Peng, director of the ancient construction department of the Palace Museum, introduced that there are three grooves of very rare lacquer gauze color painting gauze partition window on the Xumizhou on the south side of Fuwang Pavilion. It uses lacquer gauze as the ground, and uses multi-layer gilding to decorate the decorative patterns on it, making a strong decorative effect of the partition gauze. Lacquer yarn is a kind of fabric with weft warp intertwined and decorated with traditional Chinese lacquer, which has a uniform and sparse square hole shape. Lacquer yarn color painting yarn clip is to make use of the clear and regular yarn holes of lacquer yarn to meet the requirements of transparent and separated partition. In order to increase the straightness and smoothness of the fabric, the craftsman covered the yarn with gold layer. Even today, although it has become brittle by hand, you can still feel its straightness and beauty. The exquisite workmanship is amazing. In the Forbidden City, this process is the only one, and its production process and materials have not yet been found in the Qing Palace archives. This has also become a "mystery" to be solved in the restoration of cultural relics in the Forbidden City.

"The cultural relics restoration project allows visitors to see a more authentic Forbidden City, and at the same time, it also recovers and preserves many lost traditional cultural skills." Shan Jixiang said that the Forbidden City has undergone three major renovations in its history, which have created three generations of craftsmen, and also created the spirit of the great craftsmen in the Forbidden City, and the reverence and love for the ancient architecture itself hidden in "craftsmanship", It should be remembered.

Let the cultural relics in the Forbidden City live

Walk into people's real life

Standing in the Wanchun Pavilion on the Jingshan Mountain, looking south, you can see that the numerous halls in the Forbidden City are gradually extending, drawing a beautiful skyline under the blue sky. Such scenery attracts many people to walk into the Forbidden City and sketch out their own image of the Forbidden City.

On October 2, 2012, the number of daily visitors to the Palace Museum reached a record 182000. In the face of visitors from all over the world, the Palace Museum has changed from "management" to "service", innovated exhibition content and display means, optimized the environment, and improved service functions... "Palace Museum service" has become a symbol of tourism public services.

The Palace Museum listened to public opinion with a more open mind and adopted suggestions from all parties, completely reversing the image of "high cold" in people's minds and entering public life. Especially in recent years, the appearance of a series of cultural and creative products in the Forbidden City has gathered a group of loyal "fans" in the Forbidden City. The Palace Museum Culture Service Center was founded in 2008. In 2014, the "Chaozhu Headset", with its creative and practical functions, received great attention from the society. By the end of 2017, the Palace Museum had developed more than 10000 cultural and creative products, with annual sales of more than 1 billion yuan. Cultural products with diverse styles were popular with people of all ages.

"Let people touch and experience the culture of the Forbidden City through more convenient ways and more abundant works, so as to realize the inheritance and promotion of traditional Chinese culture." Shan Jixiang also pointed out that the cultural creative products of the Forbidden City should also move from "quantity growth" to "quality improvement", and infiltrate the spirit of craftsmen into all fields of cultural and creative product research and development, Through cultural and creative products, the humanistic feelings, artistic attainments and the spirit of the times behind cultural relics will be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

On December 29, 2016, the education center of the Palace Museum, located in the west side of the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City, and in the north and south side rooms of the Xihe Gate, was officially unveiled, becoming an important public education base of the Palace Museum, giving a more comprehensive and three-dimensional play to the social education function of the Palace Museum. In addition, since the founding of the Palace Museum, education for young people has been established as one of the important functions of the Palace Museum. Today, the Palace Museum has gradually established a professional education team to carry out various and rich youth education activities in the form of off campus classes, so that more young people can understand, love and inherit excellent traditional culture.

In recent years, the Forbidden City has carried out a series of reforms and self-improvement: in order to make the tired audience rest more dignified, the Forbidden City has customized chairs, tree benches and arranged clearer signs; It takes three years to renovate the environment of the Forbidden City, clean up temporary buildings, restore cement and asphalt floors to traditional building materials, and reproduce the beautiful scenery of green land, blue sky, yellow tiles and red walls; We will ensure the safety of ancient buildings, cultural relics and visitors and build a "safe Forbidden City" through measures such as smoking ban, flow restriction and closing on Monday; Carry forward and inherit intangible cultural heritage in the spirit of preciseness, openness, excellence and keeping pace with the times; Constantly expand the opening scope of the Forbidden City to prevent the audience from being "closed"; In the aspect of "Internet+culture", we are constantly developing, so that people can easily access the culture of the Forbidden City across time and space constraints; Strengthen the research and development of cultural and creative products in the Forbidden City to meet people's desire to "bring the culture of the Forbidden City home"; Every year, the Palace Museum holds more than 20000 public education activities, and the public education project of the Palace Museum is also promoted to Malta, Singapore, Thailand and other countries.

Shan Jixiang summed up the above practices of the Palace Museum into eight "expressions" that should be displayed when facing the audience: sincerity, purity, peace of mind, ingenuity, satisfaction, happiness, comfort and enthusiasm. "Its essence reflects the humanized and people-oriented service concept of the Palace Museum, which aims to let the cultural resources of the Palace Museum enter people's real life, so as to implement the important instruction of General Secretary Xi Jinping to let cultural relics live, and provide high-quality cultural services for domestic and foreign audiences that the Palace Museum is a world famous tourist destination."

Enter the "National Reception Hall" of the Forbidden City

Understand the cultural roots of today's China

On November 8, 2017, Mrs. Trump, the first US president to visit China, arrived in Beijing. After the plane landed, the Trumps went to the Forbidden City by car. Accompanied by President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan, they visited the Palace Museum. The Palace Museum has also become a witness of the times of the historic meeting between the two presidents.

Historically, the Forbidden City has welcomed US presidents many times, which is of special significance in the history of China US relations. In July 1971, when Kissinger, then the US National Security Advisor, visited China secretly, four of the 48 hours he stayed in China were arranged to visit the Forbidden City, which was the only time Kissinger went out during his visit. In February 1972, when Nixon, the then President of the United States, visited China, he visited the Forbidden City. In 1998, the then US President Bill Clinton visited the Forbidden City with his family when he visited China, and made a "wonderful" comment. In November 2009, President Obama of the United States visited China for the first time since he took office and visited the Forbidden City. The Associated Press once commented on Obama's visit to the Forbidden City: "Visiting the scenic spots and historic sites of the visited country reflects a leader's respect for the culture of this country."

Lu Peixin, the former Acting Director of the Protocol Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who has received foreign heads of state to China for many times, said that the Forbidden City is a landmark building in Beijing and even in China, and is the essence of Chinese history and civilization. Therefore, when a head of state visits China, especially for the first time, he usually arranges to visit the Forbidden City or the Great Wall, while most of the Forbidden City's visitors to the Yuan capital will go there, Especially those who have some knowledge of Chinese history.

In addition to the President of the United States, Russian President Putin, who visited China in 2000, German Chancellor Merkel, who visited China in 2012, French President Hollande, who visited China in 2013 and served as Indian Prime Minister Singh in time, and French Prime Minister Valls, who visited China in 2015, all visited the Palace Museum.

Chinese ancient architecture is a materialized culture. As the peak of royal architecture, the Forbidden City is even more so. "Every brick and tile in this magnificent palace casts the language of imperial power and etiquette, which can be called the most complete spatial expression of Chinese traditional ideology and culture." Shan Jixiang, the president of the Palace Museum, wrote that the architecture of the Palace Museum contains the understanding of heaven, earth and people by ancient people such as yin and yang, five elements and eight trigrams. The place names in the Forbidden City mostly contain the words "benevolence", "peace", and so on. The "Zhongzheng" and "Renhe" they represent are the core of Chinese Confucianism.

In Chinese traditional culture, the hall is the most important place in a family, and it is the concentrated display of the host's cultural accomplishment. The Forbidden City is to China what halls are to houses, and its status is self-evident. The Forbidden City, which can represent the image of national civilization and display Chinese civilization, is playing the role of "reception hall" in China's foreign exchanges, becoming a card and bridge for Chinese and foreign exchanges. Foreign dignitaries who came to China walked into the "National Reception Hall" in the Forbidden City to understand the cultural roots of today's China.

In recent years, the Palace Museum has developed rapidly, and the "Palace Museum craze" has set off a Chinese style in the world. As an important part of the cause of Chinese cultural relics museums, cultural relics exhibition and exchange plays an irreplaceable role in spreading Chinese culture, displaying the national image, and improving the soft power of Chinese culture. From the opening of the "Unearthed Cultural Relics Exhibition of the People's Republic of China" to the 40 years of reform and opening up, the Palace Museum has organized and implemented more than 200 major cultural relics exhibition and exchange projects, covering more than 30 countries on five continents, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, with more than 100 million visitors. Every cultural relic exhibition in the Palace Museum will cause a cultural sensation and become a local cultural fashion.

In order to make "the voice of China", the Palace Museum held the "Forbidden City Forum" jointly participated by the international museum community in 2015, and issued the "Forbidden City Declaration"; Since 2016, the "World Forum on the Protection of Ancient Civilizations" has been held every year with the participation of representatives of world cultural heritage researchers and protectors, and the Taihe Declaration has been issued to further enhance the appeal and influence of the Palace Museum in the field of international museums and world cultural heritage protection. In addition, the Palace Museum has also cooperated with the International Association of Museums and the International Society for the Repair of Cultural Relics to establish its only training center in the world. Over the past five years, it has trained professionals from more than 60 countries, and has taken advantage of its own cultural resources and rich expert resources to expand international exchanges and enhance cultural identity and attraction, Improve the right to speak.     

The pictures in this version are provided by the Palace Museum

Layout design and drawing: Cai Huawei

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