The Temple of Heaven covers an area of 2.72 million square meters, which is bigger than the Forbidden City. It has two walls, forming an inner and outer altar. The altar wall is round in the south and round in the north, which symbolizes the round place. The ball altar is in the south, the valley prayer altar is in the north, and the two altars are on the same north-south axis, separated by a wall. The main buildings of the ball altar are the ball altar and the imperial dome, and the main buildings of the valley prayer altar are the hall of prayer for the new year, the palace and the door of prayer for the new year.
According to historical records, the official activities of offering sacrifices to heaven and earth can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty, which was still in a slave society in 2000 BC. The ancient emperor of China called himself "the son of heaven" and was very devout to heaven and earth. Every emperor in history regarded offering sacrifices to heaven and earth as a very important political activity. Sacrificial architecture occupies an important position in the construction of the Imperial Capital, and it must be built with the highest technical level and the most perfect art by concentrating manpower, material resources and financial resources. The Temple of Heaven, built in the late feudal society, is the most representative work among many sacrificial buildings in China. The Temple of Heaven is not only a pearl in China's ancient architecture, but also a treasure in the history of world architecture. The Temple of Heaven was built in the 18th year of Yongle in Ming Dynasty (1420), and it was built at the same time as the Forbidden City where Judy served for fourteen years. In the 9th year of Jiajing (1530), it was renamed the Temple of Heaven in the 13th year of Jiajing (1534) because of the system of offering sacrifices to the four suburbs respectively. After the reconstruction of Emperor Qianlong and Emperor Guangxu, the current pattern of Tiantan Park was formed.
In the early years of the Ming Dynasty, heaven and earth were worshiped together, and the altars in the northern and southern suburbs were worshipped together. The place where the sacrifice is held is called Dasitang, which is a square building with eleven rooms. In the 9th year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty (1530), heaven and earth were separated, and a dome altar was built in the Temple of Heaven to worship heaven, and another Fangze altar was built in the northern suburb. The magnificent temples originally dedicated to heaven and earth were gradually abandoned. In the 19th year of Jiajing (1540), the original big sacrifice hall was changed into a big pleasure hall, and a circular building began.
After the Qing court entered the customs, everything was still in accordance with the old system of the Ming Dynasty. During the Qianlong period, the national strength was strong and the Temple of Heaven was built. In the twelfth year of Qianlong (1747), the emperor decided to rebuild the inner and outer walls of the Temple of Heaven, changing the earth wall into city bricks, and wrapping two layers of city bricks from the middle to the top. The width of the top of the inner altar wall is reduced to 4 feet 8 inches, and there are no eaves columns, making it a hanging gallery without colonnade. After the reconstruction, the inner and outer walls of the Temple of Heaven are thicker, and the GAI is more than ten miles long, making it a magnificent scenery. The main buildings of the Temple of Heaven, such as the Hall for Praying for the New Year, the Imperial Palace and the Dome, were also rebuilt at this time and have been preserved to this day.
Layout of Temple of Heaven
The main building of the Temple of Heaven is located in the inner altar, which is arranged in a straight line from south to north. All the palaces and altars face south in a circle, symbolizing the sky. The whole layout and architectural structure are unique. The Hall of Prayer for the New Year is the place where the emperor prayed for a bumper harvest. It is a circular hall with three eaves, 38 meters high and 32.72 meters in diameter. It has a blue glazed tile roof, all brick and wood structure, and no long purlin beams. It is supported by 28 wooden pillars and 36 purlins, which has high artistic value in architectural modeling.
The Temple of Heaven is divided into an inner altar and an outer altar by a double altar wall, which looks like the word "Hui". The south corner of the double altar wall is a right angle, and the north corner is an arc, symbolizing "a round place". The circumference of the outer altar wall is 6553 meters. It turns out that the Western Wall only opened the Valley Gate and the Autumn Gate. After 1949, the east gate and the north gate were built one after another, and Zhao Hengmen in the south of the inner altar was changed to the south gate.
The perimeter of the altar wall in the Temple of Heaven is 41.52m, and there are six gates, namely, East Gate, North Gate and West Gate, while the south gate of the Ball Hall has Taiyuan Gate, Zhao Heng Gate and Guangli Gate. The main buildings are concentrated in the inner altar. In the south, there are Oahu Altar and Royal Dome, and in the north, there are the Hall of Praying for the New Year and the Hall of Emperor Gan. The two parts are separated by a partition wall. A "single bridge" (brick walkway) with a length of 360 meters, a width of 28 meters and a height of 2.5 meters connects the Oahu Island altar and the valley prayer altar, forming the north-south axis of the inner altar.
Ball altar is the place where the emperor holds gifts to worship heaven. It was built in the 9th year of Jiajing (1530). The altar is circular in plane and divided into three layers, all with white marble railings. The surface of the altar was originally made of blue glazed tiles. After being rebuilt in the 14th year of Qianlong (1749), it was paved with hard and durable mugwort bluestone. The railing head of each floor is engraved with dragon patterns, and there is a stone dragon head extending outward under each floor for drainage of the altar surface. The circular mound altar has two low walls, the outer and inner circles, symbolizing a round place. The ancillary buildings of the ball altar include the imperial vault and its accessories, the sacred vault, the sacrificial pavilion and the three vaults (sacrificial vault, musical instrument vault and Brown's recommendation vault). Standing on the boulder in the middle of the top floor of the ball altar, although whispering, it is very loud. So whenever the emperor sacrifices to heaven here, his loud voice is like an Oracle from heaven, and the solemn atmosphere during the sacrifice is even more mysterious. This is because the surface of the altar is smooth, and the sound wave can quickly spread in all directions, hitting the surrounding stone fence, reflecting back and merging with the original sound, so the volume is doubled.
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