File:China, in a series of views - displaying the scenery, architecture, and social habits of that ancient empire (1843) (14761081914).jpg

Identifier: chinainseriesofv3to4allo (find matches)
Title: China, in a series of views : displaying the scenery, architecture, and social habits of that ancient empire
Year: 1843 (1840s)
Authors: Allom, Thomas, 1804-1872 Wright, G. N. (George Newenham), 1790?-1877, editor Fisher, Son, & Co., publisher
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Publisher: London, Newgate Street Paris, rue St. Honoré : Fisher, Son, & Co.
Contributing Library: Getty Research Institute
Digitizing Sponsor: Getty Research Institute

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rly called the Gardens of Yuen-min-Yuen, is situatedabout three leagues north-west of Peking, and occupies an area of eleven square miles.Here are no less than thirty distinct imperial residences, each surrounded with all thenecessary buildings for lodging the numerous state officers, servants, and artificers,that are required, not only on occasions of court and public days, but for the regularconduct of the household. Each of these assemblages includes so great a number ofseparate structures, that at a little distance the appearance is precisely that of a com-fortable village, and of tolerable extent. The mode of building possessing few traitsof permanence, on a closer examination a character of meanness, and a poverty ofinvention, are at once discovered; and even here, in the most luxurious and spaciousof all the imperial homes, it is to the amazing number of fanciful huts, and decoratedsheds, rather than to their stateliness or durable pretensions, that any magnificence isascribed.
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I \ I ^ ^I -^ .^ HALL OF AUDIENCE, PALACE OF YUEN-MIN-YUEN. 9 Amongst these thirty groups of painted palaces, the Hall of Audience is the most conspicuous for its magnitude, ornament, and proportions. Elevated on a platform of granite, about four feet above the surrounding level, an oblong structure stands, one hundred and twenty feet in length, forty-five in breadth, and in height twenty. A row of large wooden columns surrounds the cella, and supports a heavy projecting roof;while an inner tier, of less substantial pillars, marks the area of the chambers: the intervals of the latter, being filled with brick-work to the height of four feet, form the enclosing screen or walls of the chief apartment. Above these the space is occupied with lattice work, covered with oiled paper, and capable of being thrown open, when the temperature of the hall demands it. On the ceiling are described squares, circles,polygons, and other mathematical figures, in various combinations, and charged with endless sha

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