Tianyi Pavilion

Built in the middle of Ming Dynasty, Tianyi Pavilion is located in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province. Its area is about 26000 square meters. It has over 400-year history. It is the representative building of Chinese book collection culture. Tianyi Pavilion is Chinese earliest private book collection building. And it is the oldest library in Asian existing ones.

Tianyi Pavilion is built by the officer Fan Qin of Ming Dynasty. Fan Qin fond of reading and collecting books. He collected over 70000 books in his whole life. Fire is the biggest hidden trouble to the Tianyi Pavilion. So, there is the pond in the front of the pavilion. And in the Qing Dynasty, the great-son of Fan Qin made the artificial hills, gazebo and plant flowers, which make the whole buildings the style of China gardens.

The buildings of Tianyi Pavilion have the features of Hui style architecture, like the horse head walls, which also can be used for prevent the fires. Then, the main buildings are made wooden structure and installed with old grey Chinese clay roof tiles. Meanwhile, the roofs have many special local traditional ornaments. These roof ornaments have special meaning, like the dragon, it stands for protecting the houses from the fire.

                                                                                                       ------  reprint news from China Royal Gardens