China Guide
Beijing
The Forbidden City
Opening time: Daily 8.30am–5pm (4.30pm in winter); last admission an hour before closing
Price: ¥40, or ¥60 including the special exhibitions; audio tour ¥30
Address: Accessible via Tian'anmen Square and from Nanchizi Dajie and Nangchang Jie
The Gugong, or Imperial Palace, is much better known by its unofficial title, the Forbidden City, a reference to its exclusivity. Indeed, for the five centuries of its operation, through the reigns of 24 emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties and up to the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1911, ordinary Chinese were forbidden from even approaching the walls of the palace. The complex, with its maze of eight hundred buildings and reputed nine thousand chambers, was the symbolic and literal heart of the capital, and of the empire, too. Most of the palace buildings date to the fifteenth century and are laid out according to geomantic theories of yin and yang. To do them justice, you should plan to spend a day here, though you can wander the complex for a week and keep discovering new aspects.
The three central halls, with their wealth of imperial pomp, are the most magnificent, in particular the Taihedian, Hall of Supreme Harmony, which is approached via a marble pavement ramp, intricately carved with dragons and flanked by bronze incense burners; the emperor's chair would have carried up this ramp, to his golden dragon throne, which still stands within.
For many visitors, however, it's the side rooms, with their displays of the more intimate accoutrements of court life, that bring home the realities of life for the inhabitants of this, the most gilded of cages. Several of the minor palaces retain their furniture from the Manchu times, most of it eighteenth century; others have been adapted as museum galleries for displays of bronzes, ceramics, paintings, jewellery and Ming and Qing arts and crafts. The atmosphere here is much more intimate, and you can peer into well-appointed chambers full of elegant furniture and ornaments, including English clocks decorated with images of English gentlefolk, which look very odd among the jade trees and ornate fly whisks. Away from the palace chambers, towards the northern boundary, the Imperial Garden is a pleasing network of ponds, walkways and pavilions.