Interior, Hall of Preserving Harmony

Forbidden City, Beijing (map)

The throne room of the Hall of Preserving Harmony seems halfway in grandeur between the Hall of Supreme Harmony and the Hall of Middle Harmony. Middle Harmony is really just a humble staging hall between the two, which probably accounts for the difference.

The overall rank of a building was set by a few simple parameters: the number of bays, the style of roof, the number of zoomorphs on the roof, and the siting of the throne. Within this fixed rank, the generic modularity of Chinese architecture allowed buildings such as this to be adapted easily to a multitude of uses.