UC Berkeley

This dissertation examines the multiple contexts in which the ruins of the Yuanming Yuan (Garden of Perfect Brightness) imperial garden-palace of the multiethnic Qing dynasty (1644–1912) are reconstituted through acts of copying. I consider the Yuanming Yuan as a site that has always been in cross-cultural translation, not only in its construction—its most famous section was designed in Sino-Baroque style by Jesuit court artists—but also in its destruction, when Anglo-French troops looted and burned it during the Second Opium War in 1860, leaving behind the marble ruins of the Sino-Baroque European Palaces. The dissertation shifts away from the original site in Beijing towards the garden’s reinterpretation and reconstitution in alternate spatial contexts from the early twentieth century to the present day. Because these reproductions are not exact copies, I consider them “translations,” in that they translate the Yuanming Yuan into new spatial contexts of international diplomacy, domestic theme park, museum gallery, and digital space; furthermore, by reconstituting a Qing imperial space that was looted and burned during the Opium Wars, these “translations” also serve as a means to reproduce—and challenge—national identities, cultural heritage, and appropriations of the past.

The introduction establishes the Yuanming Yuan as a site of cross-cultural translation, a site of memory, and a site of fragmentation. Chapter one examines the architectural translation of the Haiyantang (Hall of Calm Seas) in the European Palaces (Xiyanglou) section of the Yuanming Yuan. In the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, Empress Dowager Cixi reconstructed a new Haiyantang in the Central Lake area of Beijing; I argue that the appropriation of the Yuanming Yuan’s European Palace-style served to create a mediated space for renewed Qing diplomacy with international powers. Chapter two turns to the reconstruction of the Yuanming Yuan as theme parks in Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Hengdian and examines the parks’ strategies of selective reproduction and conflation of Qing imperial spaces. I argue that the microcosmic nature of the original Yuanming Yuan made it a suitable site to replicate within theme park imaginaries of the national future. Chapter three traces the journey of the looted bronze zodiac animal heads from the Haiyantang and argues that their potency as symbols of Yuanming Yuan’s looted objects comes from their physical form as decapitated heads. I further argue that the reinterpretation of the heads through acts of artistic creation and vandalism by contemporary artists and activists speak to present day concerns about cultural heritage, preservation practice, and national identities. The dissertation concludes with a meditation on the possibilities and limitations of digital reconstruction and preservation.