Photography Five Pagoda Temple in Beijing

• Skušek's Collection (SEM)
• Slovene Ethnographic Museum

A black-and-white photograph showing a temple building in an architectural style adopted for many buildings, even outside China, the so-called jingan baozuo shita 金剛寶座式塔 or “diamond throne-shaped pagoda”. The Buddhist temple here was built during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). Although the temple stands alone in the photo, it is now the central building of the Zhenjue Temple (Zhenjuesi 真覺寺) or “Temple of Great Enlightenment” in Beijing. After it was built, the temple complex was also commonly known as “Temple of the Five Pagodas”.

The photograph is the 217th of 449 photographs of Beijing and its surroundings in the album of Ivan Skušek Jr., purchased during his stay in Beijing (1914–1920). In the handwritten inventory of the album, the photograph is referred to as 5-Türmen-Pagode (Wu-Ta-Sze). (DZ, MV)

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