Storied Pavilion

The Chinese ge is similar to the lou in that both are of two or more storey .but the ge has a door and windows only on the front side , with the other three sides all solid walls , and it is usually enclosed by wood balustrades boards all around.

Such storeyed pailions were used in ancient times for the storage or important articles and documents .Wenyuange , for instance ,in the Forbidden City of Beijing was in Confucius Temple of Qufu , Shandong Province , was devoted to the safekeeping of the books and works of painting and calligraphy bestowed by the courts of various dynasties . Isitors to the city of Ningbo ,Zhejiang Province ,can still see Ianyige ,which houses the greatest private collection of books handed down from the past .Monasteries if a karge suze birnakkt gave their own libraries built in the style of a ge and called cangjingge to keep their collections of Buddhist scriptures .Some of the ge , notably those erected in parks ,like other pavilions or towers (ting , tai and lou ) ,were used for enjoying the sights .

The name ge is also used to describethe towers which shelter the colossal statues one finds in some great monasteries. A prominent example in the Guanyingge of Dulesi Temple in Jxian County, Hebei Province . Twenty-three meters high and housing the huge idol of the Goddess of Mercy (Guanyin),it is the oldest existing multiple –storeyed structure of ts kind in China. Built in the Liao Dynasty (907—1125 A.D.). It has withstood twenty-eight earthquakes including three of a devastating nature. When all the houses in the area collapsed, it was the only one that survived the disaster. This goes to show how well its wood its wood frame was structured. Other well-known religious buildings housing Buddhist statues, big or small ,include Foxiangge in Beijing's SummerPalace ,Dshengge in Chengde's PuningsiTemple and Zhenwuge in Ronxian, Guangdong Province. All of them, tall , graceful and dignified ; can be listed as representative works of classical Chinese architecture.