The empire of Qing Dynasty, in search of various ways of having fun, introduced a block of traditional Chinese style and Europe style of garden buildings called European Palaces in the northern part of Garden of Eternal Spring. The European Palaces is composed of over ten buildings and courtyards, among which are popular Harmonious Wonder, Line Bridge, Ten Thousand Flowers Array, and Cage for Sparrow, Belvedere, Palace of Calm Sea, Yuanying Guan, Big Fountain, Guanshui Fountain, Xianfa Mountain and Xianfa Wall.
It began to be constructed in 1747 and was almost finished in 1759. It was designed and instructed by western missionary Lang Shining, Jiang Youren and Wang Zhicheng, and built by Chinese craftsmen. Though the building style is the “Baroque Style” which appears in the late stage of European Renaissance and the garden style is the “Le notre Style”, it also integrates a lot of traditional Chinese techniques into the construction of the garden and the building decorates. The building materials are mainly white marble stones, the surfaces of which are carefully elaborated and the roofs are all covered by glazed tiles. The main body of the European Palaces is the artificial fountain, which was called “Shuifa” at that time. The “Shuifa” is famous for its large number, imposing manner, and unique concept. It mainly forms into Harmonious Wonder, Palace of Calm Sea and Big Fountain large fountain groups.
The area of European Palaces accounts for less than 1/50 of the whole area of the three palaces of Yuanming Yuan. Though it is only a small part of Yuanming Yuan, it is successful in imitating a European style garden. This magnificent feat plays an important part in the history of cultural exchange on the palaces between east and west and it also arouses warm backlash in Europe. One western missionary who had seen Yuanming Yuan praised the European Palaces expressing: “it is the embodiment of all the beautiful and interesting places, and it also concludes all kinds of magnificent and unique fountains that one can imagine.” He even went as far as to say “The biggest one of these fountains can keep pace with the fountains in Palace of Versailles and Church of St.Cross.” The missionary concluded that Yuanming Yuan is the Chinese Palace of Versailles.
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