Image Courtesy: The Palace Museum

The Qing Emperor Qianlong considered gardens essential to a ruler’s mental and emotional well-being. His first private garden, commissioned in 1742 was at the Palace of Established Happiness (建福宮)in the northwest quarter of the Forbidden City.  Filled with exquisite pavilions, weathered rocks, sunken courtyards and winding galleries, this Garden became Qianlong’s favorite retreat where he kept his most valued art collection. In 1923, when the deposed emperor Puyi still lived in the Forbidden City, the Garden was razed to the grounds by a mysterious fire. For three-quarters of a century, the devastated Garden laid unattended beneath a pile of rubble.

In 1997, the Hong Kong-based China Heritage Fund (CHF) finalized its offer to support a full reconstruction. This first ever large-scale construction project in the Forbidden City since the early 20th century was completed in 2005. CHF’s second collaboration with the Palace Museum is the reconstruction of the Hall of Rectitude Complex (中正殿) a large part of which was destroyed by the same 1923 fire. The Hall of Rectitude Prayer Compound was initiated in 1697 by Emperor Kangxi (Qianlong’s grandfather) to manage all court rituals of Tibetan Buddhist worship. Elaborate redesign and reconstruction by the very devoted Qianlong eventually turned the site into the official Tibetan Buddhist center for the Qing courts. The 14 structures in the complex also housed imperial production centers and repositories of a large collection of Tibetan Buddhist religious and art objects.  Completed in late 2012, the Hall of Rectitude complex is now the “Research Center for Tibetan Buddhist Heritage” of the Palace Museum.