| Imperial
City (c. 1804 onward, badly damaged 1968) other
sites in Hue |
Hue, Vietnam |
Click on an image to enlarge
The Imperial City at Hue is the best-preserved remnant of a vast citidel and royal quarters that once existed on the site. To put the ruins into context, it is important to consider how they were originally used.
In
the early 19th century the Emperor Gia Long consulted geomancers to find
the best place to build a new palace and citadel. The geomancers chose
the present site at Hue. The Emperor wished to recreate, in abbreviated
form, a replica of the Forbidden
City in Beijing. At his command, tens of thousands of laborers were
conscripted to dig a ten kilometer moat and earthen walls to form the outer
perimeter of the citidel. Later, the earthen walls were replaced by two-meter-thick
stone walls built in the style of the French military architect Vauban.
Due to the topography, the citadel faced east toward the Perfume river
(unlike the Forbidden City in Beijing, which faced due south). The Emperor
decided to locate his own palace within the walls of the citadel along
the east side nearest the river. A second, smaller set of walls and moat
defined the area of the "Purple Forbidden City," where the Emperor built
a network of palaces, gates, and courtyards that served as his home and
the administrative core of the Empire.
By the time the last Emperor of Vietnam stepped down in the mid 20th century, the Purple Forbidden City had acquired many dozens of pavilions and hundreds of rooms. Although improperly maintained (the city suffered from frequent termite and typhoon damage) it nevertheless remained an imposing spectacle. All of that changed in 1968, when American military forces in Vietnam, reacting to the communist takeover of Hue, ordered the city retaken. American bombs blasted the majority of the city into rubble, sparing only a handful of buildings.
Nowadays the city has been declared a UNESCO site and the remaining buildings have been lovingly restored. But, much of the site was so badly damaged that it has been given over to vast rice fields that cover most of the Purple Forbidden City. Even so, the remaining buildings are sufficient to give the visitor a sense of how the Vietnamese interpreted Chinese imperial architecture and adapted it to their culture.
Below: Site plan of the Imperial City before
the Tet Offensive of 1968.
Area of the Purple Forbidden
City outlined in purple.
Image adapted and colorized
from the original in Hué, la Cité Interdite, by Philippe
Lafond
Bibliography:
All images copyright 2003 Yunsheng Huang of the University of Virginia.
Buckley,
Michael. Moon Travel Guides: Vietnam Cambodia and Laos Handbook, 2nd
Edition
China:
Moon Publications, Inc. 1997
Cohen,
Barbara. The Vietnam Guidebook
New
York: Harper and Row Publishers, Inc. 1990.
Florence,
Mason & Storey, Robert. Lonely Planet: Vietnam
Melbourne:
Lonely Planet Publications. 1999
Lafond,
Philippe. Hué, la Cité Interdite
Paris:
Éditions Mengès. 1995
West,
Helen. Insight Guides: Vietnam
Singapore:
APA Publications (HK) Ltd. 1991