From space, The Forbidden City looks like a microchip in the middle of the Beijing metropolis. The complex is over 500 years old but still projects the power it once protected. This largest wooden structure on Earth is a timeless marvel of design. Not sure anyone ever visited all of the 999 rooms.
I have traveled to visit the Forbidden City many times, and it is a magical place especially when experienced in the right order, gate after gate and space after space. It is a center of power but also a center of ingenuity, wisdom and balance.
The most powerful palace on Earth for many centuries, even when not all knew of its existence. The individual pieces of the structure are meticulously maintained and the many layers of lacquer and the incredible tiles on the roofs are still here, in a beautiful interplay with the sun.
I have taken many hundreds of pictures in some of the open spaces of the Palace Museum, as the Forbidden City is now called, but also in the small alleys and inside of some of the very beautifully proportioned buildings.
I used an algorithm to amalgamate a selection in order to look under the surface. The series of photographs here has a certain level of abstraction, but also carries some of the emotion and harmony that in the same breath must have inspired, frightened, protected and intimidated.
Even Mao did not dare to touch the Forbidden City. His portrait is placed on what is now an outer wall.
The Forbidden City is a symbol of the genius that has been woven into the fabric of China for thousands of years.
London July 2021
edited in Lisbon 2025
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