Rebuilding the past with paper

In 1929, a young Chinese student named Xi Fuquan stood before a doctoral examination committee at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany.

When they granted him his Doctor of Engineering degree, he became one of the earliest Chinese architects to earn a German doctorate.

For his research, Xi studied three Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) architectural models at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. They were delicate, intricate, and entirely made of paper. Known as tangyang, these models were once used by Qing court artisans to show emperors what their tombs would look like before a single brick was laid.

Xi examined them closely. He read the tiny Chinese characters written on small yellow slips of paper pasted onto the models. He recorded dimensions, materials, and construction techniques.

"These models themselves are not made entirely to scale, but they provide extremely detailed information about measurements, numbers, terminology, and materials," he observed.

"That information is written on many yellow slips and pasted onto the corresponding parts of the models. From these slips, it is clear that two of the models were designed for the tombs of Emperor Tongzhi's consorts."