Emperor's lodge to open next year

By Chen Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-11-11 08:14

Dubbed the "mini-Forbidden City" complex within the Forbidden City, the newly restored Juanqinzhai in Qianlong Garden's will be opened to the public next year, a spokesman of the Palace Museum said on Monday.

The newly restored Juanqinzhai in the Forbidden City's Qianlong Garden after five years of painstaking works. [CNS]

"The five-year renovation work at Juanqinzhai has just been completed, and it will take us some time to put the ancient arts collected by the emperor back in place," Zheng Xinmiao, director of the Palace Museum, told a press conference in Beijing.

The restoration of the 233-year-old structure's interior is the Palace Museum's first-large scale project, Zheng said.

"It has given us a precious experience in both theory and practice."

Juanqinzhai means "Lodge of retirement" and was designed by China's longest reigning emperor, Qianlong, for private use following his retirement in 1771.

At the time China was one of the world's largest and most prosperous nations.

Constructed with the finest materials and artistry available to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), it is adorned with bamboo-threaded flooring, white-jade cartouches and luxurious wall decorations.

Largely in a state of disrepair, Juanqinzhai became the subject of an international restoration effort, organized by the world Monuments Fund (WMF) and the Palace Museum, in 2001.

The $3 million project is the first phase of a 12-year multimillion-dollar project to restore the entire complex.

Bonnie Burnham, the president of the WMF, said one of the biggest challenges was how to blend traditional craftsmanship and materials with modern conservation approaches and scientific applications.

"It is an approach that will be used at other renowned heritage sites in China, preserving them for both the Chinese and the rest of the world," Burnham said.

Liu Chang, a professor of the architecture department of Tsinghua University, said: "We have accumulated precious knowledge and developed the best approaches in order to adapt the building with contemporary climate control, lighting, and museum exhibition technologies."

The lodge was as fragile as the art it contained, but is now in a condition to protect its precious contents, he said.

"Only a few embroidery workers over 40 years old who come from Suzhou province know the traditional techniques of the exquisite double-sided embroidery used in this project," Nancy Berliner, from the Peabody Essex Museum in America, told China Daily on Monday.