Tianzun Pavilion

　　    Tianzun Pavilion is situated in Fengtai Town, Ninghe County. It was first built during the Kangxi reign of the Qing Dynasty and underwent restoration in the eighth year of the Xianfeng era (1858). This Taoist temple was dedicated to the Primordial Heavenly Worthy. Originally consisting of a mountain gate, side halls, and the main pavilion, most of the structures were destroyed in an earthquake, leaving only the main pavilion. The pavilion is built atop a tall platform, standing 14.7 meters high in total. It is a three-story wooden structure: the lowest level is the Tianzun Pavilion, the middle level is the Queen Mother’s Hall, and the upper level is called the Purple Tenuity Hall.    

　　     The building features a tightly constructed and rational design with tasteful ornamentation. Remarkably, it survived the Tangshan Earthquake unscathed, making it a valuable physical reference for the study of seismic-resistant architecture in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region.     

　　    Tianzun Pavilion is a Taoist temple dedicated to the Primordial Heavenly Worthy. Originally composed of a mountain gate, side halls, and the main pavilion, only the main pavilion remains today. The pavilion is built on a tall platform and consists of three levels—upper, middle, and lower—with a total height of 17.40 meters. The lower level is called the Tianzun Pavilion, featuring a five-bay width and a four-bay depth with a front porch; the middle level is the Queen Mother’s Hall, also five bays wide and four bays deep; the upper level is named the Purple Tenuity Hall, measuring five bays in width and two bays in depth, with a front porch that offers views from the railing. It has a hip-and-gable roof with nine ridges and blue tiles. The pavilion has a wooden frame structure. The central and side bays share eight wooden columns, each 12 meters long, which run through both floor levels and reach down to the fifth purlin. In addition to these main columns, there are auxiliary eave columns, gable columns, and porch columns, all connected via brackets and mortise-and-tenon joints to the layered beams and floorboards across three levels, forming a complete structural system. It remained intact during the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake and stands as an outstanding example of ancient Chinese wooden architecture.