Home » City specials » Qingdao
Bavarian palace rises over city
By Zhang Qian |
September 4, 2010, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
AN opulent Bavarian-style palace, residence of the colonial-era German governor, is the most impressive piece of architecture dating back to Qingdao's German concession period.
Today the massive well-preserved castle on Mt Guanhaishan is a museum, though in the past it was an official guest house favored by the late Chairman Mao Zedong and other leaders over the years.
The structure has red-tiled roofs and thick walls of pale yellow stone and gray granite. One of the roof carvings is a dragon facing the sea.
Inside are 30 rooms and halls, grand spiral staircases and magnificent chandeliers. Most of the elegant furniture remains as the castle escaped most of the rampages of the Red Guards during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). One statue did lose a nose, however.
Built in 1906, the structure cost the governor his job -- when the kaiser checked the bill (said to be 1 million marks), he fired him.
It was both the governor's residence and the office of the German administration. During the concession period from 1897-1914, Germans built many imposing structures, but most of the major buildings were destroyed during World War I and World War II.
The castle is considered a national historical site and it opened as a museum in 1999.
The four-story castle covers more than 4,000 square meters and the main part of the building is around 30 meters high. The roofs, predominantly made of red tile, also contain tiles of blue and green.
Standing in front of the castle and looking up, visitors see a stone dragon's head extending forward, like the figurehead or prow decoration on German ships that were common until World War I.
"The Germans drove their battleships across the ocean and took Qingdao," said museum guide Jessie Wang. "That's the message the German wanted to convey through this building."
Virtually all the building materials were imported from Germany, except for the granite from nearby Mt Laoshan, which is famous for its stone.
Of the castle's 30 rooms, 14 are exhibition halls of the museum. The rooms are distinctive, with different lighting fixtures, fireplaces and carvings. All the exterior walls are around 60 centimeters thick, keeping the house cool in summer and warm in winter and keeping out the damp.
Color crystals are widely used in the chandeliers and lighting fixtures.
The castle has a large basement, partly used for servants quarters and dining room. The first floor contains a central nave, curving staircases, meeting room, banquet hall and ballroom. The second floor contains bedrooms and the office of the governor and his family.
The central lobby is around nine meters high, lighted by a magnificent crystal chandelier. The brown wood walls are decorated with carving. In the corner is a jade green colored fireplace. An old German clock stands beside the fireplace and still keeps perfect time, playing a music every 15 minutes and chiming on the hour.
A picture of the Madonna hangs in a reception area off the central lobby. As visitors waited, the governor could look through a peephole in a colored glass panel and decide whether he wanted to receive them.
Splendid gatherings were hosted in the ballroom illuminated by a huge, flower-like crystal chandelier weighing more than 1 ton. The grand piano, manufactured in 1876 in Germany is extremely rare. The timbre is excellent and the keys are ivory. The factory was destroyed in bombing during World War II and there is said to be only one other such piano in existence, and that is in a German museum.
In the governor's bedroom a special mirror on his dressing table allowed him a full view of the room, so that as he waxed his mustache he could see if an assassin or troublemaker approached.
The room also contains a gun cabinet with a mechanism to keep children out. There are no knobs to open the cabinet; it can only be opened by turning two heavy posts at the sides of the cabinet, too difficult for a child.
The castle contains a number of other clever devices designed by Germans.
Since Chairman Mao stayed in the castle, it escaped the ravages of the "cultural revolution" that attacked things that were foreign and luxurious. However, the carved face, of a weeping woman, on a wall lamp in the lobby is missing its nose, due to a spiteful anti-imperialist hammer blow.
Today the massive well-preserved castle on Mt Guanhaishan is a museum, though in the past it was an official guest house favored by the late Chairman Mao Zedong and other leaders over the years.
The structure has red-tiled roofs and thick walls of pale yellow stone and gray granite. One of the roof carvings is a dragon facing the sea.
Inside are 30 rooms and halls, grand spiral staircases and magnificent chandeliers. Most of the elegant furniture remains as the castle escaped most of the rampages of the Red Guards during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). One statue did lose a nose, however.
Built in 1906, the structure cost the governor his job -- when the kaiser checked the bill (said to be 1 million marks), he fired him.
It was both the governor's residence and the office of the German administration. During the concession period from 1897-1914, Germans built many imposing structures, but most of the major buildings were destroyed during World War I and World War II.
The castle is considered a national historical site and it opened as a museum in 1999.
The four-story castle covers more than 4,000 square meters and the main part of the building is around 30 meters high. The roofs, predominantly made of red tile, also contain tiles of blue and green.
Standing in front of the castle and looking up, visitors see a stone dragon's head extending forward, like the figurehead or prow decoration on German ships that were common until World War I.
"The Germans drove their battleships across the ocean and took Qingdao," said museum guide Jessie Wang. "That's the message the German wanted to convey through this building."
Virtually all the building materials were imported from Germany, except for the granite from nearby Mt Laoshan, which is famous for its stone.
Of the castle's 30 rooms, 14 are exhibition halls of the museum. The rooms are distinctive, with different lighting fixtures, fireplaces and carvings. All the exterior walls are around 60 centimeters thick, keeping the house cool in summer and warm in winter and keeping out the damp.
Color crystals are widely used in the chandeliers and lighting fixtures.
The castle has a large basement, partly used for servants quarters and dining room. The first floor contains a central nave, curving staircases, meeting room, banquet hall and ballroom. The second floor contains bedrooms and the office of the governor and his family.
The central lobby is around nine meters high, lighted by a magnificent crystal chandelier. The brown wood walls are decorated with carving. In the corner is a jade green colored fireplace. An old German clock stands beside the fireplace and still keeps perfect time, playing a music every 15 minutes and chiming on the hour.
A picture of the Madonna hangs in a reception area off the central lobby. As visitors waited, the governor could look through a peephole in a colored glass panel and decide whether he wanted to receive them.
Splendid gatherings were hosted in the ballroom illuminated by a huge, flower-like crystal chandelier weighing more than 1 ton. The grand piano, manufactured in 1876 in Germany is extremely rare. The timbre is excellent and the keys are ivory. The factory was destroyed in bombing during World War II and there is said to be only one other such piano in existence, and that is in a German museum.
In the governor's bedroom a special mirror on his dressing table allowed him a full view of the room, so that as he waxed his mustache he could see if an assassin or troublemaker approached.
The room also contains a gun cabinet with a mechanism to keep children out. There are no knobs to open the cabinet; it can only be opened by turning two heavy posts at the sides of the cabinet, too difficult for a child.
The castle contains a number of other clever devices designed by Germans.
Since Chairman Mao stayed in the castle, it escaped the ravages of the "cultural revolution" that attacked things that were foreign and luxurious. However, the carved face, of a weeping woman, on a wall lamp in the lobby is missing its nose, due to a spiteful anti-imperialist hammer blow.
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