In balance to the Temple of Heaven, Temple of Earth was built in 1530 in the Ming Dynasty, it was subsequently renovated in compliance with an imperial decree of Emperor Qianlong in 1749 in the period of Qing Dynasty, after the Cultural Revolution, in 1981 it was restored.
Temple of Heaven, or “Tiantan”, “the Altar of Heaven” in Chinese, was built in 1420, same time as the Forbidden City. It was opened to public in 1918, after 1945, during the civil war of China, the wall at the south part of the park was destroyed to setup a small airport.
From a satelliite view of Hutong, some of the courtyard houses can still be recognized and well preserved, many others are just invisible among the little extension buildings.
A courtyard house often called as 四合院 (SiHeYuan) or quadrangle house, it is a typical traditional Chinese style of living, the size and the detail may vary in some ways accordings to the different province, for example in the south of Yangtze River, the courtyard may be small, but all most all of the rooms have a second floor, that is to keep off the heat from outside, while the couryard houses in Shanxi or Shaanxi have a bigger yard for collecting the sunshine in the cold winter.
Wanping Fortress was built in 1638-1640, in the Ming Dynasty for defending Li Zicheng (李自成) peasant rebellion. At the beginning it was named as Circumpolar Town “拱极城”, in 1928, it was renamed as Wanpingcheng “宛平城”. It has only two gates, the east gate named Ever Prosperous Gate “永昌门” , then renamed as “威严门” Majestic Gate, the west gate named as Favorably Govern Gate “顺治门”.
National Library of China, includes: the Library of Ancient Books which locates at Wenjing Street, west of Beihai Park, and the Main Library which showed here in 3-D rendering.
The Beijing Exhibition Center was built in the same time as 798, but the design was much different.
