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The Fire Nation palace and the Earth King’s palace in Ba Sing Se are both modeled on the Forbidden City in Beijing.
Fire Nation
The Fire Nation palace is modeled on the Hall of Supreme Harmony, with some added Thai architectural elements i.e. the flames on edge of the roof.
Earth Kingdom
The design of the Earth King’s palace, on the other hand, is modeled on the Meridian Gate.
Note: There will be more on the palace in Ba Sing Se, once I get to those episodes.
The Bei Fong Mansion - Layout
Ever wondered how Toph managed to sneak out at night without her parents noticing?
The layout of the Bei Fong mansion follows the Siheyuan i.e. the traditional Chinese courtyard house.Take a look at the other layouts. Siheyuan come in all sizes —according to the owners’ wealth and status— the basic layout stays the same, it just gets multiplied if the place gets bigger and additional parts get added if there’s more family or money.
The siheyuan dates back as early as the Western Zhou period, and has a history of over 2,000 years.They exhibit outstanding and fundamental characteristics of Chinese architecture. They exist all across China and are the template for most Chinese architectural styles. The layout of a simple courtyard represents traditional Chinese morality and Confucian ethics. In Beijing, four buildings in a single courtyard receive different amounts of sunlight. The northern main building receives the most, thus serving as the living room and bedroom of the owner or head of the family. The eastern and western side buildings receive less, and serve as the rooms for children or less important members of the family. The southern building receives the least sunlight, and usually functions as a reception room and the servants’ dwelling, or where the family would gather to relax, eat or study. The backside building is for unmarried daughters and female servants: because unmarried girls were not allowed direct exposure to the public, they occupied the most secluded building in the siheyuan.
What does that mean for Toph and her family?
Take a look at the layout of their house(ses) and garden. Her parents live in the biggest house in back (since there seem to be no older/higher ranking members of the Bei Fongs present or living there). Toph herself would not live in the same house with them but in the smaller one next to it.
Ever wondered how she was able to sneak out? Much easier to do when you do not sleep next to your parent’s or your nanny’s bedroom.
The house at the garden gate is for receptions and potentially also where dinner was served.
Aang, Katara and Sokka most likely got given a room in one of the houses on the left or right.
Arnook’s Throne Room
When Katara goes to confront Arnook over Pakku refusing to teach her, we see Arnook’s throne room. The gate dominating the room is called a paifang.
Paifang, also called pailou, is a traditional Chinese architectural gating style as an arch.
The word paifang (Chinese: 牌坊; pinyin: páifāng) originally was a collective term used to describe the top two levels of administrative division and subdivisions of ancient Chinese city. The largest division within a city in ancient China was a Fang (坊), equivalent to current day precinct. Each fang was enclosed by walls or fences, and the gates of these enclosure were shut and guarded every night. Each fang was further divided into several Pai (牌; literally “placard”), which is equivalent to current day (unincorporated) community. Each pai in turn, contained an area including several hutongs (alleyways). This system of urban administrative division and subdivision reached an elaborate level during Tang Dynasty, and was remained in the following dynasties.
Why does he have a city gate in his throne room? No idea, maybe Ba Sing Se gave it to them and they decided against putting it on an island outside the city :P
The Palace in the Northern Water Tribe City is a pagoda.
Note also the moon gates in the facade.
Chinese Pagodas 塔Tǎ are a traditional part of Chinese architecture.
The earliest base-structure type for Chinese pagodas were square-base and circular-base. By the 5th-10th centuries the Chinese began to build octagonal-base pagoda towers.
The temple we see in the “Bato of the Watertribe” episode follows the design of a courtyard house. Courtyard houses (siheyuan 四合院) epitomize traditional Chinese architecture.
A siheyuan 四合院 is a historical type of residence that was commonly found throughout China, most famously in Beijing. In English, siheyuan are sometimes referred to as Chinese quadrangles. The name literally means a courtyard surrounded by four buildings.
Throughout Chinese history, the siheyuan composition was the basic pattern used for residences, palaces, temples, monasteries, family, businesses and government offices.Sources: One
Incidentally, Ozai’s home in “Ember, Ash, and Kindling” is one of these.
![atla-annotated:
The Fire Temple on Roku’s island is based on the
Yellow Crane Tower first built in the year 223 AD, the current structure however, was rebuilt in 1981. The tower stands on Sheshan (Snake Hill), at the bank of Yangtze River in Wuchang District, Wuhan, in Hubei province of central China. Yellow Crane Tower is considered one of the Four Great Towers of China.
There are some legends regarding it, too:
There are at least two legends related to Yellow Crane Tower. In the first, an Immortal (仙人) name Wang Zi’an (王子安) rode off on a yellow crane from Snake Mountain. A tower was later built in commemoration.
In the second, after becoming an Immortal, Fei Wenyi (费文祎) would ride a yellow crane and often stop on Snake Hill to take a rest.[1]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxgobbFlY31r7coaeo1_r1_500.jpg)
The Fire Temple on Roku’s island is based on the
Yellow Crane Tower first built in the year 223 AD, the current structure however, was rebuilt in 1981. The tower stands on Sheshan (Snake Hill), at the bank of Yangtze River in Wuchang District, Wuhan, in Hubei province of central China. Yellow Crane Tower is considered one of the Four Great Towers of China.
There are some legends regarding it, too:
There are at least two legends related to Yellow Crane Tower. In the first, an Immortal (仙人) name Wang Zi’an (王子安) rode off on a yellow crane from Snake Mountain. A tower was later built in commemoration.In the second, after becoming an Immortal, Fei Wenyi (费文祎) would ride a yellow crane and often stop on Snake Hill to take a rest.[1]
