Just imagine that it is a fascinating, moonlit castle-like building. An unparalleled masterpiece that is breathtaking.
– Victor Hugo
The Old Summer Palace was built in the middle of the Kangxi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, and was originally a garden that the Kangxi Emperor Aisin Juelo Xuanye presented to his fourth son Yin Yu and gave the "Old Summer Palace" plaque. In the forty-sixth year of the Kangxi Reign (1707), it had already begun to take shape. According to the "Kangxi Record": On November 11, the 46th year of the Kangxi Dynasty, the Kangxi Emperor came to the garden for a banquet for the first time, which is also the earliest written record of the Old Summer Palace.
The Old Summer Palace originally covered an area of less than 20 hectares, but after Yin Yu took the throne, the Old Summer Palace gradually became a palace-type imperial garden. From the third year of the Yongzheng Dynasty, a palace-style palace was first built in the southern part of the original Old Summer Palace and an edict was issued. Since then, it has been greatly expanded to the north, west and east, and the large palace garden covers an area of more than 200 hectares. By the ninth year of Qianlong (1744), the famous "Forty Views of the Old Summer Palace was finally formed". After that, the Changchun Garden was built in the 10th to 16th years of Qianlong (1745-1751), and the old garden of Fu Heng's father and son was merged into the 35th year of Qianlong and named it Qichun Garden. Together with the Old Summer Palace, the Three Old Summer Gardens were formed.
From the third year of the Yongzheng Dynasty (1725) the Yongzheng Emperor promoted the Old Summer Palace to the palace imperial garden, to the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860) after 135 years of painstaking management by the five emperors of Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang and Xianfeng, finally built a wonderland on earth, more than 100 well-known scenic groups, which not only transplanted many famous gardens in the south and north of the Jiangsu, but also well integrated Western architecture into the oriental garden, the Qianlong Emperor called it "the area of the real heaven treasure and the spirit of the earth, the place where the emperor travels, there is nothing more than this." Its fame even spread to Europe, and it was known as the "Garden of Ten Thousand Gardens" and the "Palace of Versailles of the East".
Unfortunately, this world-famous royal garden was finally destroyed by the Anglo-French fire in the tenth year of Xianfeng (1860). Although the famous garden was destroyed by fire, its status as a forbidden place for royal gardens has not changed, and no one is still allowed to enter. There were no images of the Old Summer Palace before it was destroyed, and the earliest known photographs of the remnants of a Western building taken by the German Ernst Ohlmer (1847-1927) in 1873 were known to have survived. Subsequently, many foreign photographers left a lot of old photos of the Old Summer Palace, let's re-recognize the images after it was destroyed a hundred years ago.
1860, an oolong photograph known as the Old Summer Palace
This is a photograph of Felice Beato, a photographer accompanying the British army during the Second Opium War. This photograph is often considered to be the only photograph before the Old Summer Palace was destroyed. Because at the bottom of the photo, a clear line of English is the handwriting left by the photographer.
Its Chinese means: The Emperor's Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace, on the outskirts of Beijing, taken in October 1860. According to the author's annotation, it was taken just before the Anglo-French army looted and burned the Old Summer Palace in October 1860, and if the record is true, the value of this photo is beyond doubt.
However, it is a pity that despite the black and white text, this photo is really not taken in the Old Summer Palace. It is one of the six city passes of the Summer Palace, Wenchang Pavilion at the northern end of the eastern embankment of Kunming Lake. Beato was mistaken.
In 1873, the German Ormé
1. Fun South. Built in 1751, it is the earliest building in the Western House Scenic Area. This photograph by Ormad was taken by Humble Southeast facing northwest. On the screen, it can be seen that the roof of the main building has collapsed, but the main body of the building is not seriously damaged, and the carved decoration of the ticket entrance and the railing of the stairs are basically intact. By around 1922, the main building had been reduced to rubble, most of the walls had collapsed, and only a few stone pillars still standing. Today, the general pattern of the original building can be seen from the large number of stone components left in the Old Summer Palace Ruins Park.
2. Fun panorama. There is a lake to the south of the funny side. In the Qianlong era, when Western buildings were most glorious, there was a stone bridge and arch in the western style of Western decoration, which were reflected in the water together with music pavilions, corridors and the main building decorated with a large amount of glass, becoming a scene of Western buildings. In 1873, when this picture was taken, the lake appeared to have silted up and overgrown with weeds. The Western Building was not the place where the emperor lived and worked on a daily basis, and it was located in the northeast corner of the Changchun Garden, and since the Jiaqing period, the focus of the entire construction of the Old Summer Palace has been moved to the Qichun Garden south of the Changchun Garden, so the lake may have been silted up long before the Old Summer Palace was burned down.
3. This photograph was taken west on the hill on the east side of the humor, which shows that the east façade of the main building is very richly decorated. On the platform protruding from the south side of the main building, there are a pair of original Western stone lions, which are no longer visible in the photo. Both lions fell in the ruins below, which can still be seen today.
4. Fun Music Pavilion. This photograph was taken southeast on the south staircase of the main building, showing part of the stairs, corridors and music pavilion on the east side of the main building. As you can see from the picture, the music pavilion is octagonal in shape, and there are stairs inside that lead to the second floor, and the windows are decorated with Western-style carvings. The corridor connecting the main building to the music pavilion is made up of a set of ticket gates, surmounted by rococo-style vine grass.
5. Garden Gate. The garden gate on the north side of the humorous is the entrance connecting the Wanhua Array, through which you can see the stone pillars on both sides of the entrance of the Wanhua Array in the distance and the Western-style pavilion in the center. The garden gate is a very novel Western style, both the overall appearance and the lines of the marble components are very different from the traditional Chinese architectural style. However, the head of the beast above the ticket gate is still in the traditional Chinese style. The Flower Array is a Western-style labyrinth, and the domed pavilion and surrounding labyrinth seen in the photograph have since been rebuilt, but there is no trace of the garden gate and the walls on both sides. After the Old Summer Palace was burned down, the Western-style building located in the northeast corner of the entire garden became a must-visit place for foreigners to come to Beijing because of its remote location, sparse care, and beautiful architecture.
6. The north side of Huanqi was originally a small square, the east side was the cocktail cage, the west side was the water storage building that supplied water to the front and rear fountains of Huanqi, and the north side was the garden gate leading to the Wanhua Array. There was originally a small fountain in the center of the square, and there was a stone road leading to the surrounding buildings in all directions. Judging by the photo, the fountain tower in the fountain has collapsed and is overgrown with weeds. A few years later, in Thomas Child's humorous photograph of the North Gate in 1877, some of the small ornaments on the fountain were no longer visible, and then the pool was removed in its entirety, and it was only restored in 1987. The rammed earth foundation under the stairs on the north side of the main building can still be seen on the site of the humorous site, and the lintel of the first gate also lies quietly on the side of the ruins.
7. The stone screen of the water viewing method. The water viewing method is the emperor's seat to view the water feature, and is located in the south of the Great Water Law. It is a platform facing north and south, on which there is originally a very luxurious throne, and behind the seat is a curved screen composed of five stone screens, which is the building seen in the photo. The patterns on these five stone screens are very different from the common screen or wall decorations, and the carvings on them are neither flowers, birds, insects, fish, nor legends, but military banners, armor, knives, guns and artillery. This photograph was taken from the east side of the stone screen to the southwest, and the throne and copper crane in front of the screen have disappeared, only a crooked base. In the distance, the bell-shaped door on the west side can be seen. Around 1910, these five stone screens and two other stone towers were discovered by Beile Zaitao when they were stolen and sold by eunuchs in the park, and after drinking them, the screens were transported to his Langrun Garden. In 1920, Yenching University purchased the Langrun Garden, and the seven stone sculptures were discarded on the lakeside until 1987.
8. Great Water Law. "Water Law" is the fountain, "Great Water Law" is the large fountain, which is a large water feature built for viewing fountains, the main body is a Western-style torii, that is, the Rococo gate-shaped building seen in the photo, in fact, when it is intact, inside the door is a stone niche with a seven-level water pan on it, and water falls from the top layer by layer. In front of the torii was originally a large fountain with fountains in the shape of copper deer, copper dogs, flip-tailed stonefish, etc., but by this time the fountain had been completely buried by the grass, and only the edge of the marble pool could be faintly seen. The large water method seen today basically retains its main structure, compared with the photo, except for the decoration on the top, another difference is that only half of the stone pillar on the left remains.
The most valuable point of this work is that this photograph is the only surviving large water method stone inscribed with glazed components, and soon after Almer took this photo, these exquisite glazed components were artificially destroyed and reversed, and we can no longer see any glazed components on the site of the great water law today.
Today's Great Water Law Site (Reference)
9. A corner of Haiyan Hall. This is the southwest corner of the Haiyan Hall taken by Almad, and the most valuable point of this is that it clearly records the line wall of the Western Building in the Old Summer Palace, which is also the only known old photo recording the interior of the line wall of the Western Building in the nineteenth century, and its academic and collection value is very high.
Interior view of the main hall of Haiyan Hall
Haiyan Hall is the most beautifully decorated building in the Western Building Scenic Area, according to previous investigations, "the gap in the wall is embedded with five-colored glazed flowers, plastered with light pink gray, and its top is covered with peacock green glazed tiles". From the photographs, you can see the exquisite carvings on the doors, windows and railings, as well as the glazed decorations on the walls, and some dark roof tiles can be seen above the walls. In the bronze engravings of Western buildings painted during the Qianlong period, a pine tree and a broad-leaved tree of unknown species are planted on the left and right outside the southwest corner of the main building of Haiyan Hall. On the left side of the photograph we can see the lush foliage of the pine tree, and the tree in the center displays its vigorous branches during Beijing's early winter season – probably an element of that beauty at its most spectacular time.
10. Located on the east side of the Yangque Cage, Fang Qiang, built in 1759, was used as a mosque for worship for the Uighur concubine Rong Concubine of Qianlong. The relatively small building, two storeys high and three rooms wide, together with the surrounding gardens, intricately carved stone bridges, octagonal pavilions, ponds, and the five-bamboo pavilion that lines the south, form an exquisite landscape.
This photograph was taken from the east side of the square exterior to the west, and from this angle you can see the unusually beautiful balustrades on the moon-shaped steps on either side of the main building. The square-exterior roof is a heavy eaves hall roof, which is higher in rank than the single-eaves roof used in the humorous way.
There was originally a small river in front of the square exterior, and the stone bank can still be seen in the photo, and now the river channel about one meter deep can be seen in front of the square exterior site, and from the photo, the river channel was dried up at that time.
11. Located west of Fangxiang, Haiyan Hall is the largest building in the Western Building Scenic Area. Contrary to tradition, the main entrance faces west, facing 11 wide, and the main entrance is decorated with many elaborate decorations, including a giant fountain with twelve beast heads, curved staircases and intricately carved balustrades, Western-style octagonal stone dings on the left and right of the pool, and several Taihu stones.
From the photo, you can see that the pool in front of the building has been overgrown with weeds and trees, the doors and windows of the main building have been burned, and the roof of the eastern water storage building can be seen through the window of the upper floor. This water storage building is the total water source of the entire eastern scenic area of the Western Building, in addition to the various large and small fountains of Haiyan Hall, the fountains of Yuanyingguan and Dashuifa in the east are also supplied by water here.
The "big mussel shell" in the fountain in front of Haiyan Hall is still in place because of its huge size and difficult to move. Two exquisite stone sculptures connecting the waterways on either side of the platform are now placed inside the west gate of Peking University.
12. Yuanyingguan was built in 1783, and can be counted as a group of scenic spots with the Great Water Law and Water View to the south, located east of Haiyan Hall and west of Line Fashan.
This photograph was taken north from the platform on the north side of Dashuifa, and the bell-shaped decoration on the main entrance and door of Yuanyingguan can be seen, and the piled brick and tile remnants can be seen inside the door.
The original three-story temple roof is about twice as high as the bell-shaped decoration, and the upper and lower floors are covered with five-colored glazed round light tiles, and the middle layer is made of golden fish scale tiles. Coupled with the intricate carvings and glazed decorations of the façade, it is conceivable that when it is intact, the building must be extremely gorgeous.
The two stone pillars decorated with high relief outside the door are carved with flowers and grapes, beautifully carved, "three inches deep", this form of stone pillar is far from the simple column surface of the pillar in Western architecture, but it is the same as the traditional coiled dragon column, and the decoration is also in line with the aesthetics of the Qianlong Emperor. A pair of Western stone lions originally appeared on the Meru seat on the left and right of the door, but there was no trace of it at this time.
1870s
In 1877, the Englishman Thomas Child photographed the Old Summer Palace. Each photograph he takes has its signature, number, and time it was taken. Compared with the humorous and curious photographed by Ormad, although Childe only arrived four years late to the Old Summer Palace, the humorous site at this time has undergone a lot of changes. A closer comparison of the two photographs reveals that the funny second-floor Western fence has disappeared.
Child's photograph of a humorous Western railing that has been removed
At this time, the Yuanyingguan was very different from the photograph taken by the German Ormer in 1873, and the carvings above the gate of the Yuanyingguan no longer existed. Child is also accustomed to finding a person to appear in the photo as a comparison of building proportions, which also provides us with a very important basis for understanding the calculation of building size today.
Frenchman Piri photographed for the second time in 1877 on the north side of the main building and the staircase. From the two photos, it can be seen that the north side of the main building has been severely damaged, the third floor is almost gone, only two of the three arches on the second floor remain, and the middle arch has been completely destroyed. The fine brickwork under the stairs has also begun to be lost.
Childe The site of the Yuanyingguan photograph taken in 1877
In just three years, many changes have taken place here, such as the handrails on the front and back stairs, the glazed components above the Great Water Law, and the Western pattern components on the Yuanyingguan have been lost.
Charles Frederick Moore's 1877 photograph of the remnants of the Octagonal Pavilion of Thread Law Mountain.
Charles Frederick Moore's 1877 photograph of the Archway of Line Hill. From the arch ticket, you can faintly see the remnants of the Western Pavilion of the Octagonal Four Coupons of Line Fashan Mountain.
Charles Frederick Moore's 1877 photograph of a section of the Shandong Archway. This is also the only remaining photo of the Shandong archway found so far.
Chinese photographer Lai Afang's 1879 photograph of the Grand Duke Hall of Guran is the earliest known photograph of the undestroyed wooden building of the Old Summer Palace and is now in the Cornell University Library in the United States.
One of the forty views of the Old Summer Palace, the Guran Grand Gonggui Moon Bridge, which was fortunately not burned down when the Anglo-French army burned the Old Summer Palace, but it was destroyed when the Eight-Nation Alliance invaded China.
In 1882, the Frenchman Xie Manxie
Xie Manlu, a Frenchman, was born on May 31, 1849, and served as a French ambassador to the "Office of the French Plenipotentiary" in the Great Qing Dynasty.
Around 1882, Xie Manlu bought seven of the twelve animal heads, including rats, cows, tigers, rabbits, dragons, horses, and pigs, but the pigs, rabbits, and rats were stolen and lost during the transportation back to China, and only the cow's head, tiger's head, horse's head, and dragon's head were brought back to France. Xie Manlu took separate photos of them, of which the image of the dragon head was discovered for the first time, and these photos are of great significance for studying the dispersion process of the beast head in the Old Summer Palace.
Xie Manlu Yuanmingyuan, Protein Photo, 1882, 12×17.5 cm.
At the Lianxi Joy of the Forty Views of the Old Summer Palace, the building in the red frame is the Hall of Knowledge.
This Xie Manlu lot is the "Zhi Guo Hall" in the landscape of Lianxi Le Place, one of the famous 40 views of the Old Summer Palace. Lianxi Le Place, also known as Shenxiu Siyong, is one of the forty views of the Old Summer Palace. It is a garden within a garden surrounded by mountains and waters, and the main scenery is located on the island. The main hall is the Shenxiu Siyong Hall, and after the Shenxiu Siyong Hall, the seventh hall directly holds five Xiamen in front of it, and the carved lacquer partition in the holding building hangs the plaque "Zhiguo Hall" in February of the 47th year of Qianlong. The hall was originally only one volume, but it was only converted into a two-volume hall in the forty-seventh year of Qianlong (1782).
Lianxi Le Office Shen Xiu Siyong Hall 1882, Xie Manlu [French] filmed
At the Lianxi Joy of the Forty Views of the Old Summer Palace, the building in the red frame is the Shenxiu Siyong Hall.
Because it is surrounded by water, the Lianxi Le Scenic Area of the Old Summer Palace survived the looting of the Anglo-French army in the Xianfeng Decade (1860). Xie Manlu recorded the building with a camera while visiting the ruins of the Old Summer Palace in 1882, which is the only surviving photograph of the old Zhiguotang. Because the Anglo-French army set fire to the Old Summer Palace in 1860, although some of the Old Summer Palace scenic areas were spared because they were remote or located in the center of the lake area, the number was small, and after the destruction, the Old Summer Palace was still a royal garden, and idle people were not allowed to approach, let alone take pictures. Therefore, most of the existing photos of Western stone architectural sites in the area of Western buildings in the Old Summer Palace are extant, and very few photos of Chinese-style wooden buildings in the Old Summer Palace exist.
Fish leaping over the kite, 1882, photographed by Xie Manlu [fr].
The Forty Views of the Old Summer Palace (9th year of Qianlong)
Snow remnants of the broken bridge around 1882
The picture on the left is Xie Manlu's Acropolis gate taken around 1882, at this time, the gate of the Acropolis is basically preserved, the Yongzheng Imperial Pen "Acropolis" is clearly visible, and the archway clamp stone in front of the Acropolis gate is still on the original site. Compared with the photo on the right, taken in the middle of the Republic of China, from September 1921 to November 1922, the 16th Division of the Army repeatedly sent a large number of vehicles and personnel to demolish the remnants of the Acropolis wall, and this photo was taken by the Japanese Tokiwa Daida and Sekino Sadato after this catastrophe. Today, only three remnants of the east, west and north walls remain in the ruins of the Acropolis, and the foundation of the building has disappeared.
Queixing Building around 1882
Panorama of the main building around 1882
Around 1882, on the north side of the Harmony, the original three-story floor was demolished to less than one and a half floors, and the two octagonal halls in the east and west were also demolished.
Around 1882, the Great Water Law and the panoramic view of the Yuanying view
The site of the water viewing method around 1882.
Around 1882, Dongyue Temple (Renyu Palace) and the main hall "Yuchen Treasure Hall" (Wuliang Hall)
The gate of the Changchun Garden Palace around 1882.
Around 1882, Changchun Garden Haiyue opened. The building was still well preserved at the time. This photograph was taken by Xie Manlu on the island of Haiyue Kaijiang, and is the only photograph of a wooden building found before the destruction of Haiyue Kaiyue.
Xie Manlu's Kaiyue Kaiyue main hall taken around 1882
Around 1882, the Changchun Garden Haiyue opening hall.
Around 1882, on the north and inner sides of the outer wall of Anyou Palace, there are three glazed ticket gates in the middle column, each with a width of 5.44 meters and a depth of 3.84 meters. Xie Manlu should have photographed this gate from north to south inside the Anyou Palace. As can be seen from the photos, Anyou Palace and Stone Bridge were still well preserved at the time of the photoshoot, and both were later destroyed during the invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance in 1900.
Around 1882, the four major continents of Houshan Mountain, at this time, the Pavilion of the Seal of the Xiangyan Sect had been destroyed, and the ruins could still be seen. In the upper left corner of the photo is Shanxian Temple, at this time the east annex of Shanxian Temple and the Sama Puyin Hall are still there, and the Sama Puyin Hall is not left after Cixi renovated the Summer Palace.
Around 1882, the ruins of Jingyiyuan Zhao Temple and some of the glazed pagodas behind it.
Around 1882, the remains of the west gate of Linfa Mountain can clearly see from the photos that there are still remnants of the octagonal four-ticket Western pavilion on Linefa Mountain that have not been completely destroyed.
Anyou Palace Huabiao
Most of the surviving photographs of Chinese wooden buildings in the Old Summer Palace were taken by Xie Manlu in 1882. These old photographs clearly show the situation before these buildings were completely destroyed, breaking the way the Chinese architecture of the Old Summer Palace was only presented in documents or paintings, and giving people a glimpse of the glorious grandeur of the imperial garden.
1900s
American Clarence Eugene Le Munyon's panorama of a finch cage around 1902. Because it is a panorama, the shooting time is earlier, and you can see buildings such as the Humble Water Storage Building and the Maze Small Water Storage Building.
Fun Garden front
The Old Summer Palace is a masterpiece of Chinese and Western combination
1910s
After the destruction of the Old Summer Palace, the ruins were still under the management of the Qing court, and no one was allowed to enter without permission, but the Western Lou scenic area was completely abandoned by the Qing court, and it was a ruined wall, which was the best place for many foreigners in Beijing to explore the ancient world. Many foreigners like to come to the ruins of Western House to take photos and dinners.
Every weekend or holiday, there are always some Westerners from the city who come to Haiyantang to travel, and the photo above reflects a group of Westerners having dinner in the north of Haiyantang at that time. Judging from the costumes of the Chinese entourage and the braids on the head in the photo, the shooting time should be the last year of the Qing Dynasty. Foreigners usually invite cooks and maids from the Chinese restaurants in the city in advance, and these cooks and maids will prepare food in advance and then carry them to the Western building to serve these foreigners to eat.
This photo was taken around the time of the early Republic of China, and the photographer was taken from south to north on the hillside south of Haiyan Hall, when the Haiyan Hall Water Storage Tower and the western line wall to the south were still intact.
Frenchman Alfred Duttre (1909) Zhengjue Temple, filmed in the southwest corner of the mountain gate of Zhengjue Temple. Judging from the photos, the temple is still well preserved despite the two disasters of 1860 and 1900. The mountain gate and drum tower are the same, and the stone bridge in front of the mountain gate still exists.
The site of the Great Water Law taken around 1915
Blake stands on Line Law Hill in 1915 to photograph the west gate of Line Law Mountain. In the distance, you can see the water viewing method, the sea Yan Hall, the big water method, and the Yuanying view.
1918-1919, American Gamble
Sidney S. D. Gambo Old Summer Palace Square Exterior Remnant, Silver Salt Paper Base, 1918-1919, 10×12 cm.
This photograph of the site of the cocktail cage taken by Gambo is one of his masterpieces, and it is well-washed and well preserved. The original negatives are now in the collection of the Gamble Images of Duke University (1908-1932), original numbers 244-1373. Of all the Gamble archives in Duke's collection, there are only seven images of the Old Summer Palace, making this original image of the Old Summer Palace even more precious.
Funny remnants
Qichunyuan Palace Gate
Located south of the Old Summer Palace and the Changchun Garden, the Qichun Garden was formed by the merger of several small gardens and was built in different periods, and is a small collection of water gardens. Some cultural relics experts say that there are only three photos of Qichunyuan in the world, which are preserved in Europe, the United States and China.
Ruins of the Water Viewing Method
Yuanyingguan ruins
1920s
Photo of Manjushri Bodhisattva in the Manjushri Pavilion of Zhengjue Temple in the Old Summer Palace (taken in the 1920s)
It is said that in those years, the Qianlong Emperor was often honored as Manjushri Bodhisattva by foreign clan kings and foreign envoys because of his outstanding martial arts skills, and Qianlong himself also respected the Manjushri Dojo, so he built a Manjushri Pavilion in the Zhengjue Temple of the Old Summer Palace and dedicated it to Manjushri. From this old photo, it is clear that the statue of Manjushri riding a lion in the pavilion is three feet tall; There are two children on the left and right, the lion slave on the left, and the Weituo on the right, both eight feet tall. The statue of Manjushri and its backlight are all wooden and gold-wrapped, and the lion and the second child are all multicolored gold, and the white jade platform is undertaken. This photo is one of the only four surviving photographs within the mountain gate of Zhengjue Temple, which can verify the accuracy of historical records, and also fill the academic gap, and has vital reference value for the research and restoration of Wenshu Pavilion of Zhengjue Temple.
The photo above is the remains of the second floor of the Haiyantang Water Storage Building taken in the twenties of the twentieth century. This photo is more precious, and it is the only photo found that was taken on the remains of the second floor of the Haiyantang Water Storage Building during the Republic of China.
Above, German Hanz von Peckhammer photographed in the twenties of the eastern part of the Haiyantang Water Storage Building
The house in the photo is Lu Yuanchun's family living on the site of the Western House, this family lives on the site of the Old Summer Palace all year round, knows a lot of stories about the Western House and the Old Summer Palace, and almost every Westerner who visits the Western House to take pictures is willing to ask him as a guide. It is also one of his important sources of income. Below the photo there is also a vegetable field, which is the usual cultivation land of Lu Yuanchun's family, and in addition to serving as a tour guide for tourists, his family also cultivates the land in the Western Building of the Old Summer Palace.
The remnants of the eastern water storage building of Haiyantang (northeast corner) taken by Kirenryu in 1922.
The picture above is the remnants of the Haiyantang Water Storage Building in the early thirties of the twentieth century, when the Peiping government briefly managed the Old Summer Palace and sent special personnel to take care of it, and the house in the lower right corner of the photo is the caretaker's duty room.
The picture above is the remnants of the Haiyantang Aqueduct taken by German Hedda Morrison (1908-1991) in 1940, after decades of continuous destruction, the Haiyantang at this time is no different from now, the north of the Haiyantang Water Storage Building is the site of the Western Line Law Wall, which has been demolished into a trench at this time.
In the 1920s, Hiryu Ren
The ruins of the Western-style building in the Old Summer Palace
Osvald Sirén (1879–1966) was an important expert in Chinese art history in the West in the 20th century. Since 1918, he has been to China six times, and has fallen deeply in love with Oriental art, and has studied ancient Chinese architecture, sculpture and painting art.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of China granted Xi Longren special authority to specially appoint a special assistant to the President of the Republic of China to assist him in his inspection of Zhongnanhai, an important office of the Republic of China government, and to inspect many buildings in the Forbidden City, accompanied by Puyi. Xi Longren took this opportunity to take a large number of photos, the Forbidden City, Zhongnanhai, the Summer Palace, and even the broken wall buildings and imperial gardens of the Old Summer Palace have not been photographed or rarely photographed in the past, which is an important video record left by Xi Renlong in China.
Panoramic view of the Western-style building
Ruins of Haiyantang
South of the Haiyantang ruins
Ruins of the water storage tower
Square façade ruins
Ruins of the cocktail cage
Great Water Law Site
Yuanyingguan ruins
Ruins of the Water Viewing Method