LA times에, 중국 베이징에 있는 Forbidden City 안의 마지막 명나라 황제가 기거하던 2층빌딩이 일반 관람객에게 곧 공개될 계획이라는 기사를 읽고, 몇년전 그곳에 갔었을때의 기억이 되살아나, 그기사를 여기에 옮겨 보았다. 엄청나게 큰 규모의 궁전으로 기억되는데, 그안에 다시 황제가 거처했던 건물이 공개 된다니..... 옛날 황제의 생활은 그곳에서 어떻게 이루어 졌었을까? 궁금해 진다.
사진은 중국 베이징에 있는 Forbidden city안에 있는 2층빌딩으로, 마지막 황제가 기거한곳이엇다. 방금 보수를 마친뒤 2명의 기자가 취재하고 있는 장면이다. 이건물은 명조시대의가장 화려한 건물중의 하나라고 한다. 건물이 너무나 셈세하여, 중국자체 기술만으로 어려워
국제적 합동작업을 필요로 했다고 한다.
그동안 중국 베이징에 있는 Forbidden City가 일반에 공개는 됐어도, 마지막 황제가 기거하던
빌딩은 1924년이후 꽉 문을 걸어 잠그고 세상과 등지고 있었다.
이번에 미국과 중국의 팀들이 힘을 모아 3백만달러를 들여 보수를 마치고 곧 일반에게도
공개 된다고 전한다. 또한 이번 보수작업은 미국과 중국팀들이 앞으로도 호흡을 잘 맞추어
비슷한 역사적 건물에 대한 보수작업을 잘 할수 있을지의 시험대 이기도 된다고 한다.
오랫동안 외부와 차단되여 있었던 관계로, 바닥과 벽에는 먼지가 수북히 쌓여 있었으며, 벽에는 쌓인 먼지자국위에 붓글씨를 쓴것처럼 붓을 휘둘러 아름다운 모습을 보여 주기도 했다고 한다. 가구위에도 먼지가 수북히 쌓여, 이곳에서만은 마치 시간의 흐름이 정지 되여 있었던 것같은 느낌이 들기도 했다 한다.
앞으로 베이징 중국을 방문하게 되면 볼수 있게 된다는 기대감도 또한 커진다.
이궁전 관리자들은 보수를 위해 외국팀과 합동으로 보수를 해야하는데 무척 긴장했다고 한다. 이해가 갈만 하다.
Forbidden City restoration an experiment in U.S.-China teamwork
China Photos / Getty Images
Two reporters visit the studio after its renovation in the Forbidden City in Beijing, China. The tiny, two-story lodge is one of the most luxurious buildings built for Qing Emperor Qianlong.
The $3-million refurbishment of a Beijing studio belonging to one of China's most artistic emperors demanded an extraordinary international partnership.
By John M. Glionna
7:19 AM PST, November 10, 2008
Reporting from Beijing -- For Bonnie Burnham, it was like entering a Chinese version of an Egyptian tomb, a small lavishly appointed studio in Beijing's Forbidden City that had remained untouched for centuries.
On a cool autumn day in 1999, the president of the World Monuments Fund followed her local guides into an area where few had set foot since 1924, when China's last emperor vacated the palace and locked the doors to the studio behind him.
What she remembers most is the musty air and thick coat of dust that covered the floor, the delicate pieces of furniture, even the lushly paneled walls etched with their courtly lines of calligraphy.
"There was a sense that time had stopped there," she recalled.
Burnham's heart raced. Because underneath the grit lay one of the five most historically important interiors to survive China's imperial past -- a window into the private world of one of the Middle Kingdom's most artistic emperors.
Today, Burnham stood among dignitaries from the Forbidden City's Palace Museum to unveil the refurbishment of the tiny two-story lodge known as Juanqinzhai, which will soon be open to the public.
The $3-million restoration, which took nearly a decade to complete, marks an extraordinary international partnership of Chinese artisans and Western expertise.
It also represents a rare instance, officials say, in which the Chinese government has sought foreign assistance and know-how to restore one of its precious historical relics.
The results have been so successful that the fund, a private, nonprofit New York-based preservation group, is extending its alliance with Chinese cultural officials to restore the Qianlong Garden's 26 other pavilions and four courtyards.
The face-lift's first phase involved numerous detailed excavations of the studio's interior, trips to the U.S. by Palace Museum staff for strategy sessions and a nationwide search in China for artisans capable of the delicate renovations.
"None of us had any kind of road map. Neither the Chinese nor the American side had any experience with this specific type of restoration," said Nancy Berliner, the curator of Chinese art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.
The Juanqinzhai studio was built in the 1770s by the Qianlong emperor for his personal use after his retirement -- a two-acre private retreat nestled in the northeastern corner of the Forbidden City.
He called it the "Studio of Exhaustion From Diligent Service."
Its construction came during the Qing dynasty when China, one of the world's most prosperous nations, was engaged with the West in terms of trade, aesthetics and ideas.
"No resource was spared. Every inch of design and creation was overseen by the emperor himself, who issued an edict that nothing could be altered by future generations," said Henry Tzu Ng, the fund's executive vice president.
The result is widely considered a masterpiece of design and materials: a jewel box replete with large murals, elaborate ceiling paintings and ornate flourishes of bamboo, white jade and satin.
Never open to public view, the studio fell into disrepair after China's last emperor, Puyi, was ordered from the Forbidden City in 1924. For decades, including the Communist takeover and Cultural Revolution, the emperor's refuge became a decrepit storage space.
For the World Monuments Fund, the forlorn studio was an opportunity. Seeking projects within China, the group approached Palace Museum officials about a restoration partnership.
To their surprise, the Chinese accepted, with officials acknowledging that they were open to outside guidance and funding.
"The Forbidden City is huge and . . . there was too much work to do; therefore, our country didn't have the energy, time as well as enough money to manage this part of the palace," said Wang Shiwei, senior engineer of the Palace Museum's historical architecture department.
"It is the first time the Palace Museum is cooperating with a foreign organization to repair its facilities comprehensively."
Palace officials visited the Peabody Museum and other venues to witness firsthand U.S. techniques of cultural restoration.
The pressure was palpable: They were undertaking the renovation of a sacred icon unchanged from the times of Imperial China. "It was like restoring something on the level of Notre Dame, something that's been there for centuries," said Berliner
Back in Beijing, teams of Chinese artisans began work in 2002 that Ng describes as "above-ground archaeology."
Preservationists scoured the studio for every scrap of loose paper and bits wallpaper and disintegrating mural that had fallen to the floor. Each was sealed in a plastic bag and labeled. Soon, they had amassed 35,000 plastic bags, officials say.
"The last emperor closed the door nearly a century ago," Ng said. "What we found was peeling wallpaper, incredible artifacts, furniture, objects behind objects, all as if he had just left it. There was this incredible sense of discovery."
One day, Burnham recalled, she opened a box she found sitting on a table. "Inside was this exquisite jade Buddha," she said. "There was no sense of how much time had passed. Had that piece been sitting there for 200 years, or had it been more recently stored there?"
The studio's murals presented a particular challenge. Fashioned under the guidance of Giuseppe Castiglione, a Jesuit missionary and painter who settled in China in the 1700s, the ceiling murals were painted on silk wallpaper, a combination of European aesthetics and Chinese decorative arts seen nowhere else in the entire 180-acre Forbidden City.
Neither the Chinese nor the Americans were sure how to remove them for restoration. The Chinese first tried to wet the seams to remove the wallpaper remnants. When that didn't work, the Americans introduced a dry method of scraping the fragile wallpaper from behind.
That worked, Ng said. But it didn't solve the challenge of getting the wallpaper back up.
"There were no records of how they had originally stuck the wallpaper, so the Chinese conservation team tried one method and the Western consultants tried a different way," Ng recalled.
"We worked out a compromise between the two: We put mattresses on the floor, on top of which we placed poles with tension springs to hold the wallpaper in place until it dried."
In the end, both sides are satisfied with the result.
Said Wang: "I think the emperor would be pleased."
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