Ancient architecture expert Zhou Qian has been associated with the Hall of Supreme Harmony for nearly 20 years, writing a book to reproduce every shining point of it

He carefully disassembled the details of 400 "parts"

  Our reporter Lu Yanxia

  "Among all the ancient buildings in the Forbidden City that I came into contact with, the Hall of Supreme Harmony is the most impressive building and the main object of my long-term research, because it is too shocking and representative." Construction expert Dr. Zhou Gan said in an exclusive interview with reporters.

In the past three years, Zhou Qian has written every shining point of the Palace of Supreme Harmony. The Palace of Supreme Harmony, published by Century Wenjing and Movable Type International, has recently met with readers.

◆See the Hall of Supreme Harmony from the inside out

  Opening the "Hall of Supreme Harmony", a majestic panoramic view of the Hall of Supreme Harmony came to your face. The Palace of Supreme Harmony under the sun bathed in the sun, after more than 300 years of vicissitudes, still showing vitality.

When excitement, shock, and pride are intertwined, you can't wait to enter the world of the Hall of Supreme Harmony and understand its past and present, inside and out, up and down.

  Zhou Qian acted as a guide, he led readers to appreciate the beauty of the design, layout, structure and color of the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

The book is professional and in-depth, and there is no lack of kind words and pictures, so that the ancient buildings are no longer far away from the public.

  The Hall of Supreme Harmony, as a building of the Forbidden City in terms of volume and level, is unique in terms of size and level. In addition to its magnificent shapes and gorgeous decorations, which give it extremely high aesthetic value, it ranges from the overall column frame and roof to the partial tenon and tenon joints. , Dou Gong, each link embodies the superb skills and wisdom of ancient Chinese architecture.

Zhou Guan explained the structure and composition of the foundation, column frame, tenon and tenon joint, bucket arch, roof truss and wall of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in detail and the ancient mechanical wisdom contained in it.

  The beauty of the decoration of the doors and windows of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the beauty of the order of the arches, the beauty of the symmetry of the Mojing, the beauty of the curves of the roof, and the beauty of the colors are also presented in the book in the form of words and pictures.

The town’s cultural heritage embodied by the treasure box on the roof of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the disaster prevention culture embodied by the five ridges and six beasts on the roof, the auspicious culture embodied in the furnishings inside and outside the temple, and the imperial power culture embodied in the use of the numerals "nine" and "five", etc. Come one by one.

It is worth mentioning that there have been many fires in the history of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Eight-Power Allied Forces in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Pu Yi ascended the throne in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Yuan Shikai’s random transformation of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, the Japanese surrendered in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and Taihe The century-old overhaul of the temple is also ingeniously integrated into the book.

◆ Shocking presentation of 400 "parts" details

  For the interpretation of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, 500 pictures are used in the book "The Hall of Supreme Harmony".

Through these pictures and line drawings, Zhou Qian interpreted the foundation, pillars, tenon and tenon, decoration, bucket arch, roof, ground, wall, color, furnishings, etc. of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. There are nearly 400 "parts" in detail.

The inner secrets of a great ancient building are unobstructed and shocking.

  Zhou Gan said: "When I write, I follow the structure of the Hall of Supreme Harmony from the bottom to the top, from mechanics to aesthetics, from history to culture, from science to art, every part is written extremely meticulously." He said, everything. The information comes from the usual accumulation, including not only his engineering practice involved in the overhaul of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, but also his scientific research on the Hall of Supreme Harmony, as well as a large number of historical materials and academic documents related to the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Countless observations and reflections in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony also provided him with a source of writing.

Wang Jiaming, general manager of Movable Type International, said that dismantling the "parts" of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in this way would almost rebuild the Hall of Supreme Harmony. "The difficulty lies in the hierarchical combination of various parts of the content and the inherent logic. Expand, messy but not messy".

  The vast majority of these 500 pictures were taken by Zhou Qian over the years.

But Zhou Qian revealed that his photography skills are actually very limited. Readers can see so many exquisite pictures, mainly from the guidance of Wang Jiaming, general manager of Movable Type International, and teacher Li Yi from Shandong Fine Arts Publishing House.

When Li Yi was editing the manuscript, he thought that the photos were completely unusable, so he asked Zhou Qian to go to the scene to retake them.

In Zhou Qian's impression, he photographed the bronze crane in front of the Hall of Supreme Harmony at least 10 times.

  Wang Jiaming said, "The Hall of Supreme Harmony" adopts the method of partial enlargement and removal of the background to highlight the knowledge and beauty, so that readers have the feeling of watching the scene. "We will do it through tailoring and designing. It highlights the environmental effect and combines the details with the environment. It is very strong and enjoyable." He also told reporters that in the layout of the book, the left and right pages of the opened book are treated as one picture, which is more visually tolerant. The interspersed and echoed between the pictures are also fuller, which he called the "hound-tooth" design method.

Not only that, in order to allow readers to have a deeper understanding of the "parts" composition of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Zhou Qian also added some AUTOCAD line drawings to show the detailed structure of the Hall of Supreme Harmony through partial magnification of the "microscope".

  Xiong Jiming, editor of Century Wenjing and editor in charge of "The Palace of Supreme Harmony", said that this book has a very large amount of information. When the manuscript is obtained, every part has rich details and materials, plus a large number of high-definition photos, just open it. The file will take a long time.

"But in order to make the structure of the book clearer and the content smoother, we finally made certain selections of these materials. Although faced with these precious materials, we were very reluctant to delete them." However, Xiong Jiming felt that after the revision of the entire book The frame of the book has gradually become clear.

  "Meticulous" and "shocking", these two words appear most frequently in readers' appraisals.

Some readers commented: "The book "The Hall of Supreme Harmony" was written too meticulously, and I learned too many things: the foundation of the puff pastry, the three-story platform, the golden brick floor, the three cross six bowls of diamond-patterned doors and windows, and the Jindougong and so on." Reader Xuangege said: "The author has not let go of any detail of the Hall of Supreme Harmony. Today I understand why the roof of the ancient building should be made into a curved form, which is not only beautiful, but also good for drainage."

◆Let readers "read one temple to know the whole temple"

  "This is the place where the ancient emperor went to court. This palace is too magnificent, gorgeous, and majestic." Zhou Qian recalled that in the summer of 2001, he accompanied his relatives and friends to visit the Forbidden City. That was the first time he saw Taihe. temple.

He never thought that his fate with the Hall of Supreme Harmony would continue from then on, and it has been nearly 20 years so far.

  Zhou Qian is lucky.

He was assigned to the Palace Museum after graduating from Beijing University of Technology with a master's degree in disaster prevention and mitigation and protection engineering in 2003. The first ancient architectural project he came into contact with was the overhaul of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and the Hall of Supreme Harmony was more than 300 years from 1697 to 2003. The room has never undergone major repairs.

  "Because there were few professionals in the Palace Museum who knew about building structures, I was fortunate to be sent to the front line to be responsible for scientific assessment of the structural safety problems that appeared in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and to propose repair and reinforcement plans." Zhou Gan said in During the two years from 2004 to 2006, he successively carried out three times of the Taihe Temple's main body and beam tenon sinking and reinforcement analysis, the Taihe Temple west mountain eaves purlin large deformation safety assessment, and the Taihe Temple mountain surface supporting wooden tenon sinking And support reinforcement analysis, Taihedian algae well sinking and climbing beam cracking analysis and other assessment work.

These "physical examinations" before the overhaul of the Hall of Supreme Harmony provided an important construction basis for the overhaul of the Hall of Supreme Harmony from a safety perspective.

  After the overhaul of the Hall of Supreme Harmony, Zhou Qian successively took charge of ancient buildings such as the corner tower of the Forbidden City, the Shenwu Gate, the Yinghua Hall, the Linxi Pavilion of the Cining Garden, the Qianlong Garden Complex, the Xianfu Palace Complex, and the Jianfu Palace Complex. Scientific analysis and safety assessment work.

During this process, the deep impression of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in his heart has not diminished in the slightest. "During long-term research, I have noticed that the charm of the Hall of Supreme Harmony lies not only in its mechanical stability, but also in its artistic and cultural content. My research on the Hall of Supreme Harmony has gradually expanded from mechanics to aesthetics.” In the process of data inquiry and on-site thinking, he constantly figured out the artistic conception that the ancient craftsmen wanted to express when building the Hall of Supreme Harmony, and explored the beauty of architecture embodied in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

"The Hall of Supreme Harmony, from layout to shape, from decoration to furnishings, contains the beauty of Chinese excellent traditional culture and art, which embodies the essence of my country’s ancient architectural art. This prompted me to write an interpretation of the excellent Chinese traditional culture represented by the Hall of Supreme Harmony. book of."

  In 2018, Zhou Qian began to write "The Palace of Supreme Harmony".

He said that writing this book hopes that readers can achieve the reading effect of "reading one temple and knowing the whole temple."

Now, his wish has finally come true.