Qinyuan Hall

Qinyuan Hall

Qinyuan Hall is a cultural heritage site protected by Suzhou Municipal Government.

Qinyuan Hall is located at No. 5 Tangli Huayuan Street, Jinting Town, Wuzhong District, and dates back to the Qing Dynasty.

Qinyuan Hall is situated within the garden lane of Tangli Village, built during the Qianlong era of the Qing Dynasty, and covers an area of 1,622.4 square meters. The entire residence is divided into northern and southern sections by a service alleyway, with each section consisting of two courtyards. The southern section includes, in sequence, a screen wall, an entrance hall, a library building, and a tower hall. The northern section includes guest rooms, a main hall, and a tower hall. Each courtyard is separated by brick-carved gateways and walls. Internally, there are two service alleyways — one running east-west and the other north-south — that interconnect the various sections of the residence, forming a cohesive complex of buildings.

The gateway of Qinyuan Hall faces west and spans an area of over 20 square meters. In front of the gate stands an eight-character-shaped screen wall nearly ten meters long, sitting atop a bluestone Sumeru pedestal. The main gate follows the design of a “general’s gate,” featuring oversized door frames with double lintels, adorned with cloud-and-mountain carvings and bracket sets. It is recessed in an eight-character shape, with carved square bricks on the side walls, resting on bluestone Sumeru pedestals that feature elaborate patterns such as dragons, phoenixes, plum and bamboo, as well as landscapes and garden scenes. The carving techniques are exquisite, and the decorative motifs are vividly lifelike. The first courtyard of the northern section is a reception hall, three bays wide and seven bays deep, with intact doors, windows, and carved components. The central bay of the main space features a free-standing floral-basket column at the intersection of the four inner beams — a distinctive feature of grand traditional halls in the Jiangnan region, known as a “floral-basket hall.” Behind the reception hall lies the highlight and main structure of the entire building: the six-pillar carved hall of Qinyuan, a grand three-bay hall measuring 12.1 meters in width and 12 meters in depth across nine rafters, with a height of over 10 meters. It has front and rear covered corridors; the front features a double-layered corridor decorated with cloud-and-mountain and beam-cloud carvings, while the rear has four bays with flat-style carved beams, using large timber materials. The main ridge is painted, and the beams, brackets, and doors/windows are adorned with carvings of figures, flowers, gardens, and landscape motifs. The column bases, carved from bluestone drum-shaped pedestals, feature intricate “auspicious” designs. The central courtyard of the hall is flanked by towering walls clad entirely in diamond-patterned square bricks, forming an extraordinary screen-like gable wall. The entire hall is grand in scale, majestic in presence, exquisitely carved, and remarkably lifelike. Whether in terms of woodwork, stonework, or brickwork, the craftsmanship reaches an exceptionally high level of artistry.

Qinyuan Hall is a cultural heritage site protected by Suzhou Municipal Government.