Summer Palace

Three thousand structures make up the Summer Palace, which is like a vast museum of traditional Chinese art, architecture and gardening. Pavilions, bridges, towers, statues and corridors are included in this figure as well as shrines and larger buildings. The whole environment is carefully designed as a showcase for the intricate beauty of Chinese arts to compliment the equally revered natural environment. A huge, two-storey boat made of elaborately carved marble is understandably one of the main attractions, another is the Long Corridor, a richly covered decorated walkway running 730 m and incorporating over 14,000 individual paintings depicting traditional scenes, great architecture, myths and heroes. The grand palace buildings are set on manmade features Longevity Hill, topped by Duobao Pagoda and Kunming Lake, which shape the layout of the rest of the compound. The hill was built with the soil from the lake which covers three quarters of the compound. Most of the main structures are on the front of the hill above the lake, creating a crowded layout of competing grandeur, which is just the right side of too busy. The back of the hill is designed with reflection in mind and is more like an incredibly opulent and well-planned garden.
This setting was first used in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) for a garden, the Garden of Clear Ripples, which was much appreciated and replicated, then gradually built upon to become the Summer Palace. Long Corridor was part of the original construction and runs along the lakeshore at the foot of the mountain—it was built to protect the emperor’s mother from the elements on her walks through the garden. South of the Long Corridor is the 17 Arch Bridge engraved with 500 lions.