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Abstract

This examination of the architectural site of Lingzhao Xuan 靈沼軒in the Forbidden City 紫禁城first and foremost deconstructs the predetermined dichotomy of “Chinese-ness” and “Western-ness” evident in previous studies. In doing so, one can then bring Lingzhao Xuan and other architectural outliers that incorporate foreign aesthetics into the global or international architectural context to further realize that those “Occidentalizing” traces themselves are in many cases eclectics. Meanwhile, the construction and restoration of Lingzhao Xuan itself is an eclectic process, having undergone several appropriations and integrations overtime.

Fundamental investigations that have taken up semiotic, social, historical approaches in this study reexamine Lingzhao Xuan’s spatial narrative from much broader transcultural, transmedia and interdisciplinary perspectives. By applying both indigenous and foreign ideas and technology in novel ways, a “sacred mountain 仙山” and “auspicious pond靈池” are formed. Lingzhao Xuan’s design as a pavilion with an aquarium turns this site into an imperial “toy in architecture,” more specifically a “Crystal Palace.” This implies that it is meant to present a trans-mundane space to its target occupants, namely its imperial patrons. Under the “glass veil” that is realized through sophisticatedly employed industrialized crystal glass, integration of the concept of Chinese “Crystal Palace” (shuijinggong 水晶宮) into the spatial narrative of Lingzhao Xuan reinforces its existence as an architectural enclosure of the divine, the sacred, the precious, the royal, and the otherworldly.