Gao’s Cliff began to be built in the first year of Jiaqing Emperor (1796) and finished in the sixteenth year of Jiaqing Emperor (1811), which takes almost 20 years. The building accounts for 11728 square meters, with 26 courtyards and 218 rooms. It is constructed by the seventeenth generation of Wang family, Wang Rucong and Wang Rucheng and it is also the last large-scale building built by Jingsheng Wang family.
There are four typical features of Gao’s Cliff building. The first one is that it builds upon the mountain, sitting north and facing south, fronting water and with hills on the back. The whole buildings are well ordered according to the shape of the mountain, so there is enough light and great ventilation. The buildings and mountains bring out the best in each other. The second feature is that the layout of the buildings follows the Xizhou Dynasty style with halls in the front and bedrooms in the back, which has colorful space and high reliability, fully reflecting the class difference in feudal society. The third feature of Gao’s Cliff is its magnificence and complete function symmetry along the axle wire, showing a middle course of the Confucian school. There is always one yard connecting with another, one door in another door, which is quite interesting. The fourth feature is the various kinds of carvings with different designs and content and excellent technique, brick carvings, wood carvings and stone carvings, which integrate Han nationality, folk customs and arts into one together. They are the models of the “delicacy and intricacy” of the architectural decorations in Qing Dynasty. Many experts and scholars regard Gao’s Cliff buildings as extremely charming folk houses which has landscape to see, interests to appreciate, pavilions and verandas to wander around and rooms to live in.
Chinese Folk Forbidden City- Grand Courtyard of Wang
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