The Ocala evening star., 1922-11-21
Unexpected in Architecture.

/ Indeed, the unexpected is the es-
sence of Chinese architecture. One
can never get complete view Of a
| temple or a yamen unless Shere be
some adjacent hill or tower or city
wall from which TO view it.
On level ground only the outer wall
and the entrance are seen, and when
! these are passed one sees only the
| first court, with it's more elaborate
F.! entrance to the second; and so on
! through three, four, five, six, it may be
| seven cOurtyards, each complete In
itself, each with a central building,
through which one passes to the court
| beyond, each building larger, higher, ,
| or more decorative than the last, each
breaking upon the beholder with II
fresh surprise.
| This is especially true of the inn
perial palace, which is perhaps the
most effectively arranged group of
| buildings in all China. Gateway
| after gateway, each gate a palace in
| itself. pillared, rooted and buttressed,
| leads into a wide-lying courtyard,
whose placid expanse dwarfs an
cient trees around its edges into SEEM
ing shrubs.
Each court is a unit Of grandeur
| and macnificence in itself, and at the
same time an integral member of a Sc.
| ries leading up to the marble-ter-
raced courtyard of the great throne
| hall.
j Although the imperial palace is the
| finest architectural ensemble in the
! capital, it is in the Temple of Heaven,
| or, as the Chinese call it, THE
! Happy Year Hail. where the en-
perOr used to offer annual supplica-
| tion TO Heaven for i prosperous new
year, that we find a single building
| in which the simple dignity of Chi
nese architecture is at it's best.
The Happy Year Hall.
This is perhaps the most frequently
/ pictured of all Chinese buildings.
| Every Chinese photographer displays
it in his window; every vender Of
postcards features it; every book on
! China reproduces it; it is probably
the one view of things Chinese Which
every westerner who knows anything
at all about China has seen. Yet there
| are few buildings which most pictures
fail so pitifully to portray.
In the usual print or photograph it
is squat, plump and heavy, like a
German wedding cake. In reality it is
strong and gracious and mighty, and
| when the visitor comes into it's pres
ence he comes into the presence Of
! a great peace.
i% rNlnt
its base above the tree-tOpsI Above
the platform is threefold marble ter
race, white and circular; then red
columns, green-gold friezeS and three
;. fine, fiaring circular roofs, with
shadows and mystery under the caves,
and the roof tiles not crying-yellow,
like those of the imperial palace, but
deep, deep blue.
But it is just in this, its chief mas
terpiece, that Chinese architecture, in
its insistence on the unexpected, has
gone farthest astray. The temple is
in the midst of a huge park; acres Of
lawn and dense groves of ancient
evergreen surround it ;. there is every
condition conducive to the most eff
fective use of distance and vista; yet
the temple approaches are so clOuded
and cluttered with cheap, tawdry, de-
: cadent gateways that nothing of the
! temple is seen until one actually
! stumbles upon it through the last
gate
t Another of the unexpected treas
: ures of Peking is the dragon screen.
, It is barely mentioned IN some of the
: gJIidebOOks. and not mentioned at all
IN others It is hidden behind a
hillock in the winter palace grounds,
, and nine-tenths of the visitors to Pc
/ king walk within a hundred yards of
] it and never dream Of its existence.
/ 1t is a wall perhaps 20 feet high
r and a hundred long, faced complete
: " with tile cast TO represent nine
!. life-size dragons in bas-relief, of va
/ rious colors--yel1ow, purple, maroon,
J. orange-dancing gayly abOye> emerald
5 biIlows. against 'pale-blue sky.
3 Doubtless one should not speak
= of 'life-size dragons: but these
4 / creatures Of the screen are the alivest
: dragons one may ever hope 10 see: ::
:, they give rise 10 the feeling that II
g n dragon lived he would be exactly
like. one of these.