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Chapter 41 The layout on the shore of the Qianshan lake is mainly the cloud-dispelling hall, the promenade and the stone boat. (1)
Paiyun hall is on the north-south central axis.This group starts from a memorial archway near the lake, goes up to the Paiyun Hall, and then up to the Foxiang Pavilion; the buildings leaning on the mountain stand toweringly, which is the focus of the front mountain.Foxiang Pavilion is a multi-storey building with octagonal diamond spire. It stands on a high platform and is the highest prominent point in the whole mountain.On the left and right of this group of buildings are religious buildings such as "Zhuanlunzang" and "Wufang Pavilion".Attached to the front part of the mountain are several other pavilions on Mishan, such as "Jingfu Pavilion" and "Painting Middle Tour".The promenade along the lake and the center line form a T-shape; at the end of the west promenade, the lake bank turns north to the small Suzhou Creek, and there is the famous "Stone Boat" near the bank, named Qingyan Boat.The Qianshan focuses on extravagance, grandeur and magnificence, which is quite different from the twists and turns of the Jiangnan landscape in the Qingyi Garden era; the arrangement of the Qianshan is in the form of "Xianshan Pengdao", which is a bit like Qionghua Island in the North Sea, with buildings leaning on the mountain layer by layer. Form a central axis and end with towering buildings.There are stone railings and verandas on the shore of the lake.There is a distant island in the center of the opposite lake, which is connected by a bridge, just like Beihai Tuancheng.It's just that the distance between the island and the shore is very large. The seventeen-hole long bridge leading to the island is not on the center line, but protrudes from the east embankment, becoming a distant view.

The third is the three major groups of main buildings behind the entrance of the East Official Gate: one is the Hall of Renshou facing east, which is the main hall of the directors; the other is the Dehe Garden to the north of the Hall of Renshou; The stage; the third is Leshou Hall; in the west of Dehe Garden.This is where Nala lived.In front of the hall, there is a stone platform facing the water to the south, from which you can get on and off the boat.These buildings are crowded and complicated, like a mansion in the city, blocking the entrance, and the reasonable route to the back mountain and the lake shore is blocked by buildings. Many people who visit the garden today do not know that there is a back mountain. Feeling confused in the courtyard, it was not until we left the west gate of Rongshou Hall and arrived at the long corridor that we suddenly saw the lake and mountains in front of us.The buildings in this part are the biggest weakness in the layout of the whole park.

The fourth part is Nanhuzhou Island and Xidi.There are five places on the island, the largest one is Yuebo Tower, or Dragon King Temple, with a long bridge leading to the East Causeway.Other small islands cannot be reached by boat.The West Causeway forms an arc from north to south, divided into sections, and there are six bridges on it.These are embellishments in the lake, for vistas of the north shore.

Tianning Temple Tower
The Tianning Temple Pagoda outside Beijing's Guang'an Gate is the oldest architectural monument standing completely among the temple pagodas in Beijing and the suburbs.This tower is of a special type:

The plane is octagonal, and the bricks are solid. The exterior is mainly divided into three parts: the high seat, the single-story tower body and the multi-layer dense eaves above.The seat is two overlapping groups of Xumizuo, with a "waist" in the middle of each group, which is divided into grids by "inter-columns". For decoration.There is only a single-story tower above the base, which is supported on the large lotus petals turned upside down. There are arches on the four fronts of the tower, windows on the four slopes, and relief statues of gods.Above the tower body are thirteen layers of densely overlapped tile eaves.

Above the eaves of the first floor, the body of the tower is not exposed in the middle of each eaves, only buckets are visible; the width of the eaves decreases with each floor, gradually decreasing upwards, so that the outline of the tower forms a gentle arc.The "brah" on the top of the pagoda is a symbol of Buddhism. It originally had "covering" and many layers of "phase wheel". wheel effect.

This type of tower has a very beautiful outline, all stable and tall.Layers of dense eaves make the light on the eaves and the shadow under the eaves form one light and one dark; overlapping and upwards, which contrasts with the plain pagoda body, is the most eye-catching treatment method suitable for distant viewing.The tower in the middle is slightly thinner, restrained below the eaves and above the seat, making it particularly slim.The outline of the seat is also more beautiful and interesting because of the protruding and contracting parts.The base of the tower is the key point at the bottom of the tower, which is clear and bright when seen from a distance; when viewed close up, you can see relief patterns, animals and figures, which are exquisite and vivid, and just receive the greatest decorative effect.It is an extremely valuable processing technique in the art of brick building.

Analyzing and comparing various types of pagodas in different eras of the motherland, we know the shapes of the wooden pagodas of the Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui Dynasty, but the actual objects no longer exist.The relics of the Tang Dynasty are mainly brick pagodas, all of which are multi-storey square pagodas, such as the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and the Small Wild Goose Pagoda in Xi'an.Although there were single-story pagodas with dense eaves in the Tang Dynasty, the plane was square, and there were no Xumizuo and buckets, such as the Yongtai Temple Pagoda in Songshan.In the south of Shandong and other provinces in the Central Plains, and in the west of Shanxi Province, although there were octagonal pagodas after the Five Dynasties, they did not have dense eaves and no buckets, such as the "iron tower" in Kaifeng.In Jiangnan, although there were octagonal pagodas in the Five Dynasties and Song Dynasty, they were multi-layered pagodas, and although the pagodas were built of bricks, each floor was supported by wooden buckets and wooden purlins, such as Suzhou Huqiu Pagoda, Luohanyuan Twin Pagodas, etc.Checking every detail of the Tianning Temple Pagoda, we can conclusively conclude that it is a real object from the Liao Dynasty. It is wrong to say that it is a "Sui Pagoda" in the Qing Dynasty stone tablet.

This single-story octagonal tower with dense eaves is only found in Hebei Province and Northeast China.The earliest records that can be traced belong to the Liao and Jin Dynasties (900th to [-]th centuries), such as the south tower and north tower of Yunju Temple in Fangshan, Zhengding Qing Tower, Tongzhou Tower, Liaoyang Baita Temple Tower, etc.However, there are still towers of this type in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, such as the Balizhuang Pagoda in Beijing.Judging from the region and time of their distribution, this type of tower is obviously a great achievement created by the working people of the Khitan nationality (a branch of the Manchu ancestors) and the Han craftsmen who immigrated to the Liao area at that time. a major contribution.After more than [-] years of testing, Tianning Temple Pagoda is still a complete and beautiful monumental building. It is one of the most precious art heritages in Beijing today.

Three "King Kong Throne Pagodas" in the suburbs of Beijing

——The pagoda of Wuta Temple outside Xizhimen, the pagoda of Xihuang Temple outside Deshengmen and the pagoda of Biyun Temple in Xiangshan Mountain. The big pagoda of Wuta Temple outside Beijing Xizhimen has a very special form; composed of towers.In Buddhist terminology, this kind of tower is called "Vajra Throne Tower".It was built in imitation of the great tower of Buddha Garan in India.

The pattern of the Vajra Throne Pagoda was brought by Saifan Pandida to China in [-] (the Yongle era of the Ming Dynasty).Zhu Di, Emperor Yongle, appointed Pandida as a great national teacher, and built Dazhengjue Temple—that is, Wuta Temple—for him to live in.In [-] (the ninth year of Chenghua in the Ming Dynasty), the Vajra Throne Pagoda was built in the temple after imitating the Central Indian style.In the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty, another two were built following this type.One is the pagoda of Xihuang Temple outside Deshengmen, and the other is the pagoda of Biyun Temple in Xiangshan.Although these three pagodas belong to the same format, each of them has great changes and is combined with other traditional Chinese styles.

They concretely demonstrate the ability of the working people of the motherland to flexibly use external influences, and they have a creative spirit of bold changes that are not limited to imitation.In architecture, such examples of actively absorbing foreign influences combined with own national forms are extremely noteworthy.At the same time, introducing the three towers in Beijing and pointing out their significant similarities and differences can also increase tourists' knowledge and interest in them.

Wuta Temple is about 200 meters north of Xijiao Park.Its big platform is five feet high, and there are five square towers with dense eaves on it. The middle one is thirteen stories high, and each of the four corners is eleven stories high.Just south of the middle tower, there is a two-story pavilion at the exit of the stairs, with a round tiled roof on the upper floor.The lowest floor of the platform is a "Xumizuo". There are five floors above the seat, with small eaves protruding out for a week on each floor.The uppermost layer is the parapet, which is the railing of the big platform.There are carvings on these, the so-called "Sanskrit flowers, Sanskrit treasures, Sanskrit characters, and Sanskrit images".The main entrance of the platform has a door opening, and inside the door there are steps hidden in the body of the platform, which spiral up and lead to the platform.

The pagoda is all built of white marble, densely covered with carvings.The iron contained in the stone has been oxidized for 500 years, showing a light orange color, which is very warm and beautiful.

Overly cumbersome carvings are the weakness of Indian architecture, but Chinese craftsmen have created their own appropriate treatment.They intelligently combined the characteristics of the motherland's techniques, and worked hard to control the emphasis of the concave and convex depths.Each floor uses the extension of the small eaves and the depth of the niche to make the part with stronger shadows, and the rest are all very shallow relief patterns.In this way, the feeling of clutter and red tape is corrected.

Xihuang Temple Pagoda, also known as Panchen Lama Purification City Pagoda, was built in [-].

The form of this pagoda is the same as that of Dazhengjue Temple Pagoda, with five small pagodas standing on a large platform.The difference lies in the form of the five towers themselves.Its central pagoda is a Tibetan-style Lama pagoda (such as the White Pagoda in Beihai), while its small four-cornered pagoda is a thin octagonal five-story "Jingzhu"; and on the plane, the bases of the four small pagodas are It protrudes beyond the big platform, and there is a series of stone steps leading to the platform in the south.Each side of the central tower is engraved with Buddha statues, grass flowers, phoenixes, etc. The carvings are extremely detailed and rich. The main four floors are carved with sutras on the plain surface, and the upper three floors are carved with Buddhist niches and lotus petals.The whole group has the impression of being slim and exquisite.

Biyun Temple Pagoda is different from the above two towers.Its large platform has three floors, and the bottom two floors are platforms, each with steps to go up.The uppermost layer is very similar to the pagoda of the Five Pagodas, with several layers of Buddhist niches carved, and the steps are also hidden in the body of the platform.But in addition to the five pagodas above it, there are two small lama pagodas on the left and right to the south, so there are seven pagodas in total.

These three relics imitating Chinese and Indian architecture are all in the scenic spots in the suburbs of Beijing.There is only one pagoda of the same style in Guandu Town, Kunming in China, which is a few years earlier than the Wuta Temple Pagoda.

Drum Tower, Bell Tower and Shichahai
In terms of the overall layout of Beijing City, everything is based on a north-south central axis in the center of the city.This central axis starts from Yongdingmen in the south, passes Zhengyangmen, Tiananmen, Meridian Gate, the first three halls, the last three halls, Shenwumen, Jingshan, and Di'anmen. There is the bell tower.The Bell Tower and Drum Tower in Beijing are not opposite each other, but are two towering buildings one behind the other on the north-south line.There is no city gate in the middle of the northern city wall, so the northern end of the eight-kilometer-long north-south median line ends before the bell tower.This grand layout with the central axis going straight through the city center is an outstanding creation of our ancestors.The Drum Tower faces the vast Di'anmen Street. Di'anmen is the "opposite view" to the south of it, and the Bell Tower stands on the north of it. In this way, the three buildings form a group of solemn units, which are suitable as the center of this central axis. Finish.

(End of this chapter)