A wander through Beijing's remaining hutongs often leads to a large wooden gate with golden door knockers.

Behind these doors lay secrets from a century past and it is little known that within a colorful period of Chinese history it lightens up the surrounding small grey gates of the more typical siheyuan courtyards.

Behind the doors may lie a palace that once belonged to the young princes or princesses of the ruling dynasty more than a century ago.

"Such a palace is called 'wangfu' in Chinese. They are something between the Forbidden City and the siheyuan courtyards, and bears features of both," says Shi Shuqing, a researcher with the National Museum of China.

At the prime of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), there were more than 50 such palaces in downtown Beijing. Less than half remain because of the rampant demolishing and reconstruction. Of the 22 still standing, only eight remain in what researchers describe as a preserved state.

These are scattered in hutongs in the small area around Shichahai and Beihai lakes, two of the capital's nightlife centers. Though an occasional visit to most of them is available once permission has been granted, only two have been officially partly opened to the public.

The country's first museum on these royal palaces called the Museum of Great Chinese Royal Palaces is currently being built inside the Palace of Prince Gong, and is due to be open before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The gardens of the Palace of Prince Gong were opened to the public 16 years ago.

The palace, covering 61,000 square meters, is tucked away in the Liuyinjie hutong beside the Sichahai Lake. Known as Gongwangfu in Chinese, it is believed to be one of the largest and best preserved among Beijing's wangfus.

"It's of great urgency that we preserve what we have left of the delicate palaces. Damage to them has been going on for a century," says Kong Xiangxing, director of the consultative committee of the new museum, who was vice-director of the National Museum of China before taking up his new post.

The remaining palaces were all built in the Qing Dynasty. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), wangfus were built in the Wangfujing area, but nothing remains of them.

The famous Wangfujing Street, which is today the capital's main shopping center, was named after the 10 palaces of princes and princesses built in the area.

(The picture shows that two visitors appreciate paintings by renowned artist Pu Ru (1986-1963), who was also known as Pu Xinyu.)

"When the royal power fell before democratic revolutions, princes and princesses, who had to sell their properties to make ends meet, moved out one after another in the early half of the 20th century," explains researcher Shi.

"Members of the new upper class at that time, including officials of new governments, businessmen and some foreigners, moved in and every new owner pulled down something old and added something new to their liking," he adds.

Hotels, apartment and office buildings now stand where the old wooden palaces once stood.

Of the 22 existing palaces, four have only broken walls and several dilapidated houses, including palaces of Prince Yi, Ding, Heng and Tui along the Ping'an Avenue.

Seven still have the general look of a palace, with the palace gates or a few major buildings left.

"Memories of the palaces are diminishing fast and documents of them are rare as the Qing official files rarely mentioned the wangfus. We need help from the public and from the international art community to find relative documents and relics," says director Kong.

Seeking relics

The ambitious plan of the new museum includes a document and a research centre plus collections and displays of the art and histories of the palaces, and of those who lived in them.

Kong said they hope to collect documents and photos of the palaces, furniture, ceramics, jade artifacts, the statues of Buddha, clocks and stationeries that once adorned the rooms. Clothes, calligraphies and paintings worn and drawn by the princes and princesses who once owned the palaces are also being sought.

"We have lost track of most relics of the Palace of Prince Gong," says Lu Ning, director of the relic administration centre of the palace.

"We only know that a famous painting by 8th-century Chinese artist Han Gan, titled 'Picture of a horse named Zhaoyebai' (Zhaoyebai Tu), was sold by the prince's descendants to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1936, and a quantity of sandalwood furniture is collected by the Taipei Palace Museum. It's apparently too difficult to get them back at present," he adds.

Lu says the new museum is negotiating with the Jietai Temple in suburban Beijing to recover furniture used in the palace which is in the latter's collection.

The palaces were treasure houses of art as the princes and princesses, who had money and time to spare, were enthusiastic art collectors, said director Kong.

"Important calligraphies and paintings were hung around the palace, which has about 100 rooms," says Lu.

A palace, the size of which varied according to the rank of its owner, was built in the basic layout of the Forbidden City.

"The difference of an emperor's palace and a prince's lies mainly in the number, height and sizes of buildings in the palace," explains researcher Shi.

Roofs on the palace could only be covered with green glazed tiles, while golden glazed tiles shine in the Forbidden City.

Patterns of the dragon head were not allowed on a prince's palace.

"A prince's palace is actually a combination of siheyuan courtyards, with one lying behind another. That's also the layout of the Forbidden City," says Shi.

Some of the palaces had gardens built in the style of the royal garden in the Forbidden City, combining the magnificence of northern China and the grace of Suzhou gardens in East China's Jiangsu Province.

"When the era of princes and princesses came to an end, the owners usually sold up or simply lost their treasures, including art collections, then gardens, and finally their houses," says Shi.

"We only have a few of such palaces left and it's impossible to rebuild such beautiful old architecture. Once it is damaged and lost, it will be lost forever," he warns.

(China Daily September 30, 2004)