Baoding
— — a quiet capital the empire forgot to take back.
Not only on a wall.
“A prefecture city of more than ten million on the North China Plain, an hour and change by high-speed rail from Beijing. Baoding kept the seat of Zhili province through most of the Qing dynasty, and the old Governor's Yamen still stands at the heart of the city, low grey courtyards behind a single gate. Mornings smell of donkey-meat sandwiches from the street stalls and millet steam from the alleys. The kind of city that does not announce itself, which is most of why it stays. from the studio
Baoding, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Baoding is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, about 140 kilometres south-west of Beijing and 145 kilometres north-east of the provincial capital, Shijiazhuang. The municipality covers roughly 22,000 square kilometres and holds a population of more than ten million by the most recent Chinese census. The city sits on the North China Plain at low elevation, with the Taihang Mountains rising to the west. It was the political seat of Zhili province from the early Qing dynasty until 1913, and the historic Governor's Yamen at its centre is the only well-preserved provincial governor's office remaining in China.
The Zhili Governor's Yamen, founded in 1729 under the Yongzheng emperor, runs along a single north-south axis of grey-brick courtyards behind a tile-roofed gate on Yuhua Road. Behind it lies the Lotus Pool Academy, Lianchi, a Qing-era garden academy of pavilions and water older than the yamen itself, founded in 1733. Together they hold the original civic centre of the city in a few square blocks. Modern Baoding extends well past them in every direction with broad boulevards and apartment blocks, but the old grey roofs still set the visual key for the centre.
The Yamen complex is open daily, with a modest admission charge, and the standard walk through the courtyards takes about an hour. Lianchi Park is a short walk west and free to enter. The city is best known to outside visitors for two everyday things: lǘròu huǒshāo, the local donkey-meat sandwich found at street stalls across the centre, and Baoding tiěqiú, the iron stress balls that have been made here since the Ming dynasty. Trains from Beijing West reach Baoding East in about forty minutes on the high-speed line.