Changing Ideologies and Unchanging Axis in the Urban Design of the Imperial City in Beijing

Abstract

Since the year 1272, when the Imperial City in Beijing was established by Kublai, until today, that city has been rebuilt and revised (the orange area in the center of fig.1). The Imperial City is the area within the Capital City where the imperial families lived, and within the Imperial City is the Palace City, where the emperors and their consorts lived. In 1272, a year after the great Mongol chieftain Kublai Khan assumed the imperial title of the dynasty—Yuan, he established the Da-Du (Capital City in Yuan Dynasty) in Beijing, and in the same year the new Imperial City was built.1In the following two dynasties—Ming and Qing—the capital was not moved, but the Imperial City had been rebuilt and renewed for times. The initial urban design and the revisions were all based on the classical ideologies—Confucianism and Daoism— and also based on the feature derived from the ideologies—the Central Axis. Confucianism and Daoism are the two classical ideologies in the history of China developed from the change of the universe and nature. Confucianism is the order of the society, depending on the difference of the classes, and giving the disciplines of hierarchy. In terms of urban planning, Confucianism gives the disciplines of the hierarchy of the architectures and in the Imperial City, and it was implemented to underline the highest status and supreme power of the emperors. Daoism follows the order of nature, to show the classical ideology that people should follow nature2. In the design of the Imperial City, the influence of Confucianism is shown by the integral design, and the influence of Daoism can be seen in the orientation and the names of the buildings. During the changes of the dynasties, the implementation of these ideologies in the Imperial City has been changed as well, except the Central Axis. The Central Axis is a north-south axis through the Imperial City, built by the first emperor of Yuan Dynasty. This feature is designed based on the ideologies and has been remained till now, for its ideological and pragmatic value. Thus, in this essay, I will introduce the changes of the urban design of the Imperial City in Beijing from Yuan Dynasty to Qing Dynasty, and show that based on these changes we can understand the Central Axis to be the most important feature for the planning.