Imperial City Vs Forbidden City Essay

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China has a long and complicated history. Therefore, it was certain that the ways of power presentation in architecture would vary from its earlier period to its later period, consider to the multiple culture fusions and the developments of technology. The best choice to compare these varies would be the two imperial cities—Han WeiYangGong Site and The Forbidden City since they were the center of the extreme power at the periods. The first difference would be about the scale and the function. Han WeiYangGong Site, built in Han Dynasty in ca. 200 BCE(Ban, ca. CE74). It was a time that the last dynasty just has fallen, and all people were unified. People inherited the concept of the imperial city from the last dynasty — to make …show more content…

The Forbidden City is only 0.73 km^2, less than one-fifth of the Han WeiYangGong Site(Yan, 2003). There were four reasons. Firstly, through lessons of the passing dynasties, a large and extravagant imperial city took too many labour and fortune, it indicated the corruptions and might cause revolt. Quite a few empire has fallen because of that. Secondly, as the technology was developed, the technique was mature enough to provide a larger inner space in a smaller scale. Thirdly, the functions were simplified, in Ming dynasty the Forbidden City was mainly used to deal with the national affairs, and temporally utilized by the royal family as a place to live(Yan,2003). The temples for worship the god and ancestors were separated individually from the city, as well the royal hunting ground and the royal garden. Finally, the crucial point, all large timbers were used up by the previous empires. To built a grant palace, timbers that from thousand years old trees were required, yet all these trees were used up before Ming was even founded. Therefore, to display the highest power, the Forbidden City was built very symmetry and strictly lined up along the central

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