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Beijing's Forbidden City gets massive facelift
The Chinese Government will spend 1.5 billion yuan (US$1.84 billion) to revamp central Beijing's Forbidden City, also known as the Imperial Palace or Palace Museum, over the next 15 years, sources from the museum said. The face-lift will repair old buildings, dilapidated floors and fading colour paintings as well as artistic antiques and articles of historical interest that need protection, said Zheng Xinmiao, curator of the Palace Museum. The Forbidden City was the power centre of the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties from 1420 to 1912. The imperial architectural complex was first constructed in 1406 and completed in 1420. Twenty-four emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties ruled from it. Covering more than 720,000 square metres, the Forbidden City has over 9,000 rooms, making the palace the largest and best preserved remaining ancient architecture in China. It was built on a cosmologically mandated north-south axis, and surrounded by a 52-metre-wide city moat and a 10-meter high wall. Zheng said a modern exhibition hall would be built if that can be done in line with the principles for protection of the Imperial Palace and in harmony with the overall appearance of the palace. The palace is expected to receive an increased number of visitors as more buildings are opened after renovations, Zheng said. More than 80 per cent of the palace will be open in the future instead of the
current one-third of the palace's total area.
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