The Golden Temple, located on Mingfeng Hill, 7 km northeast of Kunming, is also known as Taihe Palace (the Hall of Supreme Harmony) and Tongwa Temple (the Bronze Tile Temple)
Mingfeng Hill, commonly known as Parrot Hill, is lofty and sheer, with ridges and peaks sheltered by trees. Half mountain and half cloud is known as the wonderful scenery in Mingfeng Hill.
The Golden Temple was first built in the 30th year (1602) of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Chen Yongbing, the governor of Yunnan at that time, followed the architectural style of the Taihe Palace of Wudang Mountain in Hubei Province to build a copper temple to honor the Taoist hero-god Zishi, who was supposed to live at the northern extremity of the universe. The Taihe Palace and other buildings were built in the periphery. In the tenth year (1637) of the Chongzhen reign of the Ming Dynasty, the palace was moved into the Jinding Temple in Jizu Mountain of Dali City by provincial governor Zhang Fenghe, and was destroyed later. Wu Shangui built the present Golden Temple in the tenth year (1671) of the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).
The crenellation, city gate and gate tower of city walls of the Taihe Palace are small, exquisite and well preserved. The Golden Temple stands tall and upright on the marmoreal stand in the city with guardrail around. The whole palace is cast with copper. The decorations of dougong (wooden square blocks inserted between the top of a column and a crossbeam), girders, sunk panels and outer eaves follow the wood like architecture,square-shaped, 6.2 meters in length and width and 6.7 meters in height, and with a double-eave gable and hip roof. The josses, plaques, girders, screens and decorations inside the palace are all cast with copper with a total weight of 200 tons, so this is the largest copper palace. The doors and windows are engraved with patterns of dragon, phoenix and beautiful brocade; eave tiles and drippings are decorated with cloud dragon pattern. The door of palace is engraved with patterns of kylin, phoenix and cloudy dragon, etc. The waiting pavilions on both sides of the palace, upright masts and flags are all made of copper. The magnificent palace, shining and splendid, is a masterpiece of Chinese copper art. A camellia planted in the Ming Dynasty stands behind the palace, and is 10 meters tall. When in full bloom, the flowers are red like fire and very gorgeous.
The Golden Temple gives an important material for research into metallurgy and foundry of Yunnan Province since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and provides a reference of the patterns and decorations of wooden architectures of the Qing Dynasty.
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