In the eighteenth century, China was ruled by the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). The emperor was a hard-working man who rose early to attend court. His palace served as his home and his office. Nevertheless, to see the palace design as being governed by such practical concerns as where he might sit to rule on matters of state and what he might do in his leisure hours misses the very important element of his religious life to which the architecture must also cater. The emperor was the Son of Heaven. The palace, therefore, combines practical administration with the emperor's domestic life and his religious personage. Chinese ideas concerning these various aspects of imperial authority are "writ large" in palace architecture.
