Tiananmen / Gate of Heavenly Peace (Beijing) - Wikipedia Entries on Waymarking.com

The Tiananmen (Gate of Heavenly Peace) is a famous monument in Beijing. It is widely used as a national symbol. First built during the Ming Dynasty in 1420, Tiananmen is often referred to as the front entrance to the Forbidden City. However, the Meridian Gate is the first entrance to the Forbidden City proper, while Tiananmen was the entrance to the Imperial City, within which the Forbidden City was located. Tiananmen is located to the north of Tiananmen Square, separated from the plaza by Chang'an Avenue.

The gate was originally named Chengtianmen, or "Gate of Accepting Heavenly Mandate", and it has been destroyed and rebuilt several times. The original building was first constructed in 1420 and was based on a gate of an imperial building in Nanjing with the same name and hence inherited the name Chengtianmen. The gate was damaged by lightning in July, 1457, and was completely burnt down. In 1465, Chenghua Emperor ordered Zi Gui, the minister of Engineering Ministry to rebuild the gate, and the design was changed from the original paifang form to the gatehouse that is seen today. It suffered another blow in the war at the end of Ming Dynasty - in 1644 the gate was burnt down by rebels led by Li Zicheng. Following the establishment of the Qing Dynasty and the Manchu conquest of China proper, the gate was once again rebuilt, beginning in 1645, and was given its present name in 1651 when the construction completed six years later. The Tiananmen gate was reconstructed again between 1969-1970. The gate as it stood was by then 300 years old, and had badly deteriorated, partly due to heavy usage in the 1950s-60s. As the gate was a national symbol, then-Premier Zhou Enlai ordered that the rebuilding was to be kept secret. The whole gate was covered in scaffolding, and the project was officially called a "renovation". The rebuilding aimed to leave the gate's external appearance unchanged while making it more resistant to earthquakes and featuring modern facilities such as an elevator, water supply and heating system.

The building is 66 m long, 37 m wide and 32 m high. Like other official buildings of the empire, the gate has unique imperial roof decorations. In front of the gate are two lions standing in front of the gate and two more guarding the bridges. In Chinese culture, lions are believed to protect humans from evil spirits. Two stone columns, called huabiao, each with an animal (hou) on top of it, also stand in front of the gate. Originally, these installations were designed for commoners to address their grievances by writing or sticking up petitions on the columns. However, the examples in front of the Imperial City were purely decorative and instead connoted the majesty of the imperial government. The western and eastern walls have giant placards; the left one reads "Long Live the People's Republic of China" while the right one reads "Long Live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples". The right placard used to read "Long Live the Central People's Government"[citation needed] on the founding ceremony of the PRC, but after the ceremony it was changed to "Long Live the Great Unity of the World's Peoples". Both placards were changed to use simplified Chinese instead of traditional Chinese characters in 1964. The phrasing has significant symbolic meaning, as the phrase used for long live, like the Imperial City itself, was traditionally reserved for Emperors of China, but is now available to the common people. The reviewing stands in the foreground are used on International Workers Day (May Day) and on the National Day (October 1) of the People's Republic of China. In front of the stands is the Imperial City's moat, still filled with water but now containing decorative illuminated fountains.

[Wikipedia]