Beijing's Top Sights - Beijing - page 220

18th rings. The bottom tier (humanity) has the 19th to 27th rings. The numbers of stairs
and balustrades are also multiples of nine. If you stand in the centre of the upper terrace
and say something, the sound bounces off the marble balustrades, making your voice
sound louder (by nine times?).
Echo Wall
Just north of the altar, surrounding the Imperial Vault of Heaven, is Echo Wall OFFLINE MAP
GOOGLE MAP ( Huíyīn Bì ) , 65m in diameter. Its form has unusual acoustic properties, enabling
a whisper to travel clearly from one end to the other (unless a tour group or a loudmouth
with a mobile phone gets in the way). In the courtyard are the Triple-Sounds Stones
(Sānyīn Shí). It is said that if you clap or shout while standing on the stones, the sound is
echoed once from the first stone, twice from the second stone and thrice from the third
stone. Queues can get long here.
Imperial Vault of Heaven
The octagonal Imperial Vault of Heaven OFFLINE MAP GOOGLE MAP ( Huáng Qióng Yǔ ) was built
at the same time as the Round Altar, and is structured along the same lines as the older
Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. The vault once contained spirit tablets used in the
winter solstice ceremony. Behind the Imperial Vault of Heaven stands the Nine Dragon
Juniper, a hoary tree with a trunk of sinewy and coiling knots. Proceeding north from the
Imperial Vault is a walkway called the Red Stairway Bridge OFFLINE MAP GOOGLE MAP ( Dānbì
Qiáo ) , leading to the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests.
Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests
The crowning structure of the whole complex is the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests
OFFLINE MAP GOOGLE MAP ( Qínián Diàn admission ¥20) , magnificently mounted on a three-tiered
marble terrace and capped with a triple-eaved umbrella roof of purplish-blue tiles. Built in
1420, it was burnt to cinders in 1889 and heads rolled in apportioning blame (although
lightning was the most likely cause). A faithful reproduction based on Ming architectural
methods was erected the following year, the builders choosing Oregon fir for the support
pillars, as explained by Lucian S Kirtland in Finding the Worthwhile in the Orient (1926):
When it was desired to rebuild the temple, and the Manchus were determined to copy in
detail the building which had been destroyed, it was found that China's forests were bereft
of timbers which could uphold the heavy tiled roof. After much argument with them-
selves, the necromancers of the court finally decided that pine logs from the forests of