“The Emperor’s Secret Garden is the extraordinary story of Qianlong’s Garden over three centuries of Chinese history, from its Imperial past to the fast-paced modern China today.
The discovery of the Emperor’s Garden in the early 2000s sparked one of the most awe-inspiring restoration projects to date; The Lodge of Retirement in the Forbidden City in Beijing had lain undisturbed since the 1700s.
The fabled Forbidden City in Beijing, a 178 acre city-within-a-city, clothed in secrecy and surrounded by myth, was for centuries a tantalizing mystery to the west. Isolated behind high walls for nearly five hundred years, successive rulers built up a collection of the most remarkable and opulent buildings and artworks of Chinese culture. The city became The Palace Museum when the Emperor left its sanctuary in 1924.”