G07: L&L China and me: Resources

There is a deep, unhealed historical wound in the UK's relations with China - a wound that most British people know nothing about, but which causes China great pain. It stems from the destruction in 1860 of the country's most beautiful palace.

The Summer Palace in Beijing – first built in 1750, largely destroyed in the war of 1860 and restored on its original foundations in 1886 – is a masterpiece of Chinese landscape garden design. The natural landscape of hills and open water is combined with artificial features such as pavilions, halls, palaces, temples and bridges to form a harmonious ensemble of outstanding aesthetic value.

Highlights: A Chinese research group announced on April 18 it had used computer imaging software to digitally map 60 percent of the original appearance of Beijing’s renowned Old Summer Palace, Yuanmingyuan. The research group led by Guo Daiheng, a professor of architecture at Tsinghua University, said during a press briefing that the team took 15 years to complete the digital restoration, according to a report from the Beijing News.
More than 80 members of the team restored more than 4,000 design charts and built more than 2,000 digital architectural models after researching over 10,000 historical files during the restoration process, according to the report. Built in the early 18th century during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the Old Summer Palace was torched by British and French invaders in 1860.