At the centre of Beijing, the Forbidden City is the largest surviving palace complex in the world and the seat from which the Ming and Qing dynasties governed China. Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and open today as the Palace Museum, it is organised along a single north-south axis that turns architecture into protocol: the wider the courtyard, the higher the terrace, the greater the distance between subject and sovereign. This first part follows that axis. It begins with the moat and the massive gate towers, crosses the outer court, and climbs the tiered marble terraces to the ceremonial halls where enthronements, audiences and state rituals took place. The camera reads what visitors rarely have time to see: roof hierarchies, glazed tile, painted brackets, the carved ramps reserved for the emperor, and the sheer scale that made the complex legible as an image of the ordered world.
