The Forbidden City: A 600-Year-Old Cultural Feast

THE year 2020 marks the 600th anniversary of the completion of the Forbidden City and is the 95th anniversary of the establishment of the Palace Museum. The Palace Museum, in addition to being the epitome of ancient Chinese urban construction and palace building design, is a material carrier of the tradition of Chinese rituals and music and their long history. From the Forbidden City, a symbol of royal power, to the Palace Museum, which is open to the public, what is the past and present story of this place?

- ZHANG XIAO

A Grand Narrative of Culture

Construction on the Forbidden City began in the fourth year of Emperor Yongle’s reign (1403-1424) during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was completed in 1420. The grandeur of its design is unbelievable, while its stories are so numerous that there are not enough pages to record them.

As Zhu Yong, director of the Institute of Gugong Studies of the Palace Museum, and author of the book From the Forbidden City to the Palace Museum, said in his book, “The magnificence of its construction is not only unbelievable, but also difficult to express in words. I find it so hard to tell such a long story. Words are so weak in the presence of the extraordinary architecture.”

How can we begin our exploration of 600 years of history contained in such an architecture? The exhibition “Everlasting Splendor: Six Centuries at the Forbidden City,” which opened on September 10, 2020, provides us with the answer. This large-scale exhibition introduces the “time” and “space” of the Forbidden City’s history and culture by means of three major themes and 18 historical focal periods, and exhibits the highest realm of a perfect combination of palatial architecture art and technology, and the endless charisma of China’s outstanding traditional culture.