The story of the Old Summer Palace - Yuanmingyuan, the Garden of Perfect Splendor - is the story of China’s sad encounters with the West during the 19th century.  This entire complex was destroyed by Western forces in 1860.  A new palace complex was then constructed nearby at Yiheyuan, the Garden of Peace and Harmony, and completed in 1895.  Five years later, it too was destroyed by Western forces.  That newer palace was subsequently restored, and became the Summer Palace visited by most tourists to Beijing today.  The grounds here, however, have yet to be fully restored - and given the huge size of the project, may never be.  Efforts here have instead focused on preserving the ruins and reforesting the gardens (though not to their pre-invasion state).  Shown here are the ruins of the Grand Waterworks and the Immense Ocean Observatory in the European Palaces section of the Old Summer Palace.

Detail of the Grand Waterworks ruins.  Europe played a major role not only in the destruction of the Old Summer Palace but also in its creation.  In the early 1700’s, Qing dynasty emperor Qianlong - an admirer and collector of European art and objects - decided to try out European architecture in Beijing.  He hired Italian painter Giuseppe Castiglione, in China as a Jesuit missionary, to design a series of palaces.  The result, constructed on the northeast corner of Yuanmingyuan, was a group of elaborate Western-style buildings, statues, and fountains - including Dashuifa, the Grand Waterworks, shown here.

Ruins of the Immense Ocean Observatory.  Construction continued in this European Palaces section of Yuanmingyuan throughout the 1700’s.  Meanwhile, the rest of Yuanmingyuan - an area the size of Central Park - was developed with hundreds of Chinese buildings, lakes, streams, bridges, hills, and scenic spots to become one of the greatest gardens (and libraries and museums) in the world, both in size and stature.  European opinion of China was high at this time, based on earlier favorable reports from Jesuit missionaries, but the admiration would not last.

More ruins of Yuanyingguan, the Immense Ocean Observatory.  By the late 1700’s, with Britain’s rise as a naval power, Europe began to see China as culturally and militarily inferior.  It decided to impose its economic will on China, including the establishment of an opium trade the Chinese authorities did not want.  From 1800 to 1838, just before the First Opium War, opium imports to China rose nearly tenfold.

Detail of a column, carved from top to bottom with patterns of grapevines, that supported the central arched gate to the Immense Ocean Observatory.  As China resisted the inflow of opium, military clashes ensued, but the country was no match.  Britain’s victory in the First Opium War expanded the opium trade.  During the Second Opium war, British and French forces occupied Beijing to force China to increase the trade even further.  They destroyed and looted the Old Summer Palace as well as other sites - including the imperial gardens of Yiheyuan, which would become the site of the new Summer Palace.  Some of what was taken from the Old Summer Palace can be seen today in British and French museums.

A broken Western-style lion watches over the ruins of Harmonious Wonder (Xieqiqu), an elaborate palace that was home to China’s first European-style fountain.  Its three-story facade remained standing after the Second Opium War, but subsequent destruction by domestic and foreign forces over the following decades reduced the structure to its current state.  During those decades, China’s decline continued, and rising anger led to the anti-Western Boxer Rebellion around 1900.  By that time, about ten percent of the Chinese population smoked opium; combined with the country’s continuing military losses, the population was plenty upset at foreigners.  They took out their frustrations by attacking and killing Westerners throughout China and laying siege to Beijing.  A coalition of Western forces - including American forces - converged on Beijing to quell the rebellion, looting the city in the process.  Besides bringing even further destruction on the Old Summer Palace, those forces also destroyed Yiheyuan, the new Summer Palace.  Thus ended the 19th century in China.

Detail of the Harmonius Wonder ruins.  The reason all these photographs were taken in the European Palaces section, even though it makes up only a small fraction of the Old Summer Palace, is because all the Chinese structures throughout the rest of Yuanmingyuan were burned to the ground.  Whereas these European-style structures were made of stone, those Chinese structures were made of wood.  Nothing remains of their ruins to photograph.

The one restored structure in the European Palaces section is the Labyrinth - a European-style maze - and the Western-style pavilion at its center.  It was simply the easiest place to begin reconstruction: this was a smaller outdoor structure, well recorded in engravings made over two centuries ago.  It was also a nice place to start: this is Yuanmingyuan’s one cheerful area, with visitors laughing as they try to figure out their way through the maze to reach the white marble pavilion.

Walls of the Labyrinth, totalling a mile in length.  Legend has it that every year on the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the emperor would hold a race among the palace maids; the one first reaching the central pavilion would receive an award from him.  During the race, the maids would carry lotus lanterns made of yellow silk, which supposedly led to the Labyrinth being named the Garden of Yellow Flowers.

A final look at the remains of the Immense Ocean Observatory.  At this point, about half the lakes of the Old Summer Palace have been cleared and refilled; the eastern half of the grounds are just starting to take shape again with maintained paths and an occasional restored bridge.  But outside the small European Palaces section, little of Yuanmingyuan is remarkable; even with a concerted effort, many years will pass before it becomes so.  Until then, the Old Summer Palace will remain a monument to China’s past weakness and an unfortunate reminder of the harm inflicted on the country by the West.