Case Name: Protection and Utilization of the Emperor's Palace
Case Type: Implementation Project
Participating units: China First Historical Archives, Beijing Xingzhongxing Architectural Design Co., Ltd., Beijing Real Estate Group Co., Ltd., Tianyu Culture Group Co., Ltd
Implementation period: October 2020 to August 2021
At the south entrance of Nanchizi Street in the east of Tiananmen Square, there is a small courtyard built in the thirteenth year of Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty (1534), which is the oldest and most complete imperial archive in China - the Imperial History Palace. With a history of 490 years, it has stored more than 1,000,000 pieces (volumes) of the Ming Dynasty's "Yongle Grand Canon" and the Qing Dynasty's "Siku Quanshu", as well as royal archives such as hadiths, records and jade. Among them, "The Ming Dynasty Mixed One Picture", "The Holy Ancestor Counts the Grass", and the Standing Storage Box of Emperor Daoguang are regarded as treasures of the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In 1982, the Imperial Palace was announced by the State Council as a national key cultural relics protection unit.
Emperor Shi Qiao
Image source: "Old Beijing History Photos"
Due to historical reasons, the south courtyard has become a miscellaneous courtyard, and the problem of illegal construction and private wire pulling is serious. According to Dongcheng District's "2018-2020 Special Action Plan for "Easing and Rectifying and Promoting Promotion", the evacuation of Huangshichen's cultural relics ended at the end of 2019.
Because of the age, the ancient building of the Emperor Shichen inevitably has many problems such as old damage. From 1981 to 2008, the First Historical Archives of China (hereinafter referred to as the First History Museum) carried out four large-scale repairs to the Imperial Palace. On May 6, 2020, the demolition work in the hospital was officially launched. According to estimates, a total of 597.14 square meters of illegal buildings in the entire courtyard were gradually demolished as planned.
In October 2020, in order to cooperate with the application of the Beijing Central Axis as a World Heritage Site and strengthen the protection of the ancient buildings of the Imperial Palace, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the First History Museum launched the "Imperial Palace Renovation and Security and Fire Protection Upgrading Project". The renovation project is the fifth large-scale renovation since the management of the Imperial History Palace of a history museum, and the project mainly includes the repair of cultural relics and the upgrading of security and fire protection.
Solve implementation challenges
Ensure the completion of the project
At the beginning of the project, under the guidance of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, the First History Museum took not changing the original state of the cultural relics as the first principle, on the premise of ensuring the safety of the cultural relics, comprehensively gave full play to the advantages of traditional technology and modern technology, fully considered the needs of display effects and social functions, and did everything possible to preserve the existing historical relics of the Imperial Palace, and achieved the overall goal of safety first, minimal intervention, recognizable restoration means, and readable history.
During the construction process, it actively strengthened communication and coordination with more than 50 units such as cultural relics, planning, municipal, transportation, and urban management and surrounding residents, and successfully applied for the changes of three important plans such as the east side of the east wall of Huangshichen and pipeline routing, and explored a set of docking large municipal work processes with the characteristics of the old city block. After careful organization and active promotion, the repair of the Huangshi Palace was completed as scheduled, and the construction of the rainwater and sewage pipes connected to the municipal pipe network was successfully completed.
1. Overcome construction interface challenges
The perimeter of the Imperial Palace is complex, and it is difficult to repair the wall. In order to obtain the repair interface and ensure the start of the project, the First History Museum overcame difficulties to coordinate the vacancy of the houses on the east side, obtained 0.8 meters of operating space, communicated with the transportation, urban management, streets and other departments to handle the construction procedures for occupying the road on the west wall, invited the relevant comrades of the Palace Museum to hold two on-site meetings to obtain the south wall repair interface, signed a construction disturbance compensation agreement with 26 residents of Beiwanzi Hutong and issued compensation for the disturbance, and the north wall was repaired.
2. Overcome municipal access difficulties
The renovation project of the Imperial Palace involves docking work with the large municipal government. Huangshichen is located in the old historical and cultural city of Beijing, with poor basic conditions of large municipal administration, many problems left over from history, and it is difficult to handle the planning and design of municipal engineering and the construction procedures of occupying and excavating roads. The First History Museum has established a communication mechanism with relevant departments, and carried out municipal projects at the same time in accordance with the work process of large municipal docking in the old city block through consulting materials, telephone consultation, investigation and research, etc., to ensure the smooth docking of drainage pipelines to the large municipal pipe network.
Comparison before and after the renovation of the south side of the courtyard of the Imperial Palace
Image source: Huang Shichen
Comparison before and after the renovation of the north side of the courtyard of the Imperial Palace
Image source: Huang Shichen
Comparison of the northeast corner of the courtyard before and after the renovation
Image source: Huang Shichen
The Emperor reappears in the sky
Assist in the application of Beijing's central axis for World Heritage Status
The renovation of the Imperial Palace has received attention and affirmation from all walks of life. "The reopening of the Imperial Palace to the public" was ranked the fifth item in the "Top Ten Highlights of the Protection of Famous Historical and Cultural Cities in Beijing in 2021", and the case of "Protection and Utilization of the Imperial Palace" was selected into the "Collection of Excellent Cases of the Protection of Famous Historical and Cultural Cities in Beijing (2013-2022)", and this renovation project also provided experience for the restoration of cultural relics and ancient buildings in Beijing.
In June 2021, in order to better play the protection value of ancient buildings and the function of "preserving history and educating people" of historical and cultural information carried by them, combined with the historical features and original functions of the Imperial Palace, we implemented the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions on archives work, and adhered to a high degree of political responsibility. After intensive content preparation, exhibit selection, and design deepening, it took only 15 days to complete the layout of the three exhibitions of the main hall, "Stone Room Jinkui Emperor Shichen", the east side hall "Jinse Wanli Rainbow through the East and West - 17th to early 20th century 'Silk Road' Historical Archives and Documents Exhibition", and the west side hall "Resistance and Quest - From the Opium War to the Xinhai Revolution Archives Exhibition".
Image source: Huang Shichen
In September 2021, with the approval of relevant departments, the North Courtyard of Huangshichen was officially opened to government agencies, institutions, file systems, universities, etc. Since its opening, the Imperial Palace has received positive comments from all sides, and more and more people have begun to pay attention to archives and the memory of the nation and the country. This unique royal building, which has been inherited for more than 400 years, has finally been able to show the public what lies beneath the veil.
General Secretary Xi Jinping has made important instructions on strengthening the protection and utilization of cultural relics and the protection and inheritance of cultural heritage, pointing out that it is necessary to sum up experience, learn from international concepts, improve long-term mechanisms, carefully protect the cultural heritage left by our ancestors, and let the historical context be better inherited. As the imperial archives of the Ming and Qing dynasties, the ancient buildings of the Emperor are inseparable from the archives of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and are the root of history and the soul of culture, and contain the unique spiritual value of Chinese culture. The protection and repair of the Imperial Palace is of great and far-reaching significance for inheriting and carrying forward the excellent traditional culture of the Ming and Qing dynasties, enhancing the self-confidence of national culture, and promoting the construction of socialist spiritual civilization.
Content source: "Collection of Excellent Cases of the Protection of Famous Historical and Cultural Cities in Beijing (2013-2022)", "China Archives" 2023 No. 1, Huangshichen WeChat public platform
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