Forbidden City, por Rocco Buttliere (Flickr)

Já começamos a ficar habituados às construções gigantescas de Rocco Buttliere (Flickr). Depois de nos ter deslumbrado com uma representação com 66 mil peças de Roma Antiga, eis que rebenta a escala e usa cerca de 84 mil peças para reproduzir a Cidade Proibida da China, novamente para um trabalho comissionado para o Museu da Imaginação, em São Paulo, Brasil.

Vale a pena ver todas as fotos no Flickr do autor e ler as descrições pormenorizadas de cada uma, que contêm factos históricos muito interessantes sobre as várias zonas da cidade.

Breve descrição da construção:

After I completed my then-largest project to date, SPQR, in December 2019, I posed the crucial question “What comes after the Eternal City?” Following a successful on-site installation of that piece at the @museudaimaginacao in São Paulo, the client and I began discussing potential future projects of a similar scope. By March 2020, we had agreed on terms for another historical 1:650 scale model, measuring 56in x 72in (143cm x 183cm), representing the Imperial Palace of the Ming and Qing Dynasties in Beijing: Forbidden City.

As the world’s largest and most preeminent example of traditional Chinese palatial architecture, Forbidden City boasts the greatest collection of preserved ancient wooden structures in the world. Built between 1406 and 1420, the complex encompasses everything from grand public courts and imperial audience chambers, to more intimate private precincts housing numerous imperial palaces. Forbidden City remained the political center of #ImperialChina until 1912 when the last Emperor, #Puyi, formally abdicated his throne under the new Republic of China. 

In 1925, the Palace Museum was established to preserve the complex, which was later declared a @unesco World Heritage Site in 1987. Since 2004, the Palace Museum has carried out a sixteen-year restoration project to repair and restore the entire complex to the former glory of its pre-1912 state: just in time for the 600th anniversary of Forbidden City’s completion in 2020.