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Fig. 2.
The virtual view of
imperial residential zone
in Daming Palace; from
B. Zhou, Daming Palace,
People’s Press, Beijing
2009, p. 22-23.
of Taiji Palace, which was the royal palace they were living in at
that time, to invite Li Yuan to live in the new Daming Palace for
avoiding the high humidity in Taiji Palace. The architect designed
Taiji Palace according to the astrology to put the architecture in the
middle of northern city, nevertheless, he ignored the topography. We
could easily discover that Taiji Palace is located on the lowest part of
the city, where water merges from surrounding, and that make the
Taiji Palace not suitable for living, especially for the aged. In order to
show publicly respect to previous father empire Li Yuan, Li Shimin
invited him to live in Daming Palace which was built especially for
Li Yuan. Unfortunately, just half year after the inauguration, Li
Yuan passed away, that also suspended the project. Until 662 AD,
the construction of Daming Palace was moved on by Li Shimin’s
son, Li Zhi (628-683 AD), the third empire of Tang Dynast.
Daming Palace covered 32 hectors, with the perimeters of 7,628
m, almost reached 4.5 times as big as Summer Palace in Beijing.
The plan of the Palace performed as a cuneiform, with the longer
side facing to the south. There are total eleven castle gates, and three
main wooden structure halls inside, including Hanyuan Hall,
Xuanzheng Hall, and Zichen Hall. The entire palace could be divided
into two parts, all the political activities were arranged in the
southern part, and the northern part was remained for residing and
entertainment (fig. 2). All the halls almost stand on the northernsouthern
axis. Walking through the main entrance, Dafeng Gate,
you could find out a superb square in front of you with 500-meter
depth. The most significant Hall, Hanyuan Hall just stood at the
end of the square (fig. 3), which was the largest Royal Hall in the
history, and its surface was around 2000 square meters. The most
important parliament and festival activities were held in this magnificent
wooden Hall. The architects shaped the basement of the
hall 15 meters higher than the ground lever to achieve the superb
effect, and let all the governors climb up into the royal court through
the eastern and western ramps. The erection of Hanyun Hall was
according to the topography, and represented the “Dragon’s head”
in the sense of “Fengshui”. Meanwhile, the two lateral ramps signified
the “Dragon’s tailor”. To 300 meters north of Hanyuan Hall,
there stood Xuanzheng Hall, which functioned for the normal daily
imperial meetings. Another Zichen Hall erected most closely to the
Northern imperial residence part, aligning on the southern-northern
axis. This architecture was arranged for regular political discussion.
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